Detlev Bork (born 9 April 1967) is a German guitarist specializing in both classical and flamenco music. On the basis of his large collection of historical scores and recordings he has contributed to musicological projects researching classical guitar music. [1]
The grandson of a concert pianist, Bork was born in Kiel where he became a member of the Kieler Knabenchor, a boys choir with which he went on international concert tours. He learned the guitar from age 11 and studied at the Musikhochschule Köln (Aachen campus) with Tadashi Sasaki (1988–93) and operatic singing with Margarethe van den Eynden and Klaus Jürgen Küper. During 1992–3 he also studied the guitar in London with Carlos Bonell. He took part in master classes with Abel Carlevaro, Eduardo Fernández, Alberto Ponce, José Tomás, Luise Walker, and others. Further studies during the 1990s took him to Spain, extending his knowledge of the flamenco style with Andrés Batista, Félix de Utrera, Luis Maravilla and José Luis Postigo. During this time he also worked with dancers including Lelita de Cadiz, Antonio Romero and José de la Vega.
He has performed as soloist, chamber musician and with orchestra throughout Europe, Israel, USA, Canada, and Mexico, and adjudicated at international guitar competitions. His CD The Other Spanish Guitar was elected ‘Classical Recording of the Month’ in March 2000 (Diamond Multimedia, CA, USA). [2] Bork's strong interest in contemporary music has led to a number of commissions from living composers which he first performed (see below).
Bork now lives and works in Heidelberg, Germany. Apart from his artistic and pedagogical work, he is also active as a musicologist. He has been a contributor to journals such as "Stereoplay", "Classical Guitar" or "Ensemble". With almost 8,000 items, he owns one of the largest private collections of recorded classical guitar music in the world and is consulted regularly by various international archives and institutions. He has contributed, with Jörg Jewanski, to numerous biographies of guitarists in the German encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG) (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1996–2008). Bork has contributed research papers to guitar symposiums and festivals including the Lake Konstanz Guitar Research Meeting, the El Paso String Series, etc. Since 2013, he is a guest lecturer at Pepperdine University, Malibu.
Recent works written for Detlev Bork include:
The classical guitar, also called Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars derive from the Spanish vihuela and gittern of the 15th and 16th century. Those instruments evolved into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar—and by the mid-19th century, early forms of the modern classical guitar. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist. He is a Member of Honour of the International Music Council.
José Fernández Torres, known as Tomatito, is a Spanish roma flamenco guitarist and composer. Having started his career accompanying famed flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla, he has made a number of collaborative albums and six solo albums, two of which have won Latin Grammy Awards.
Francisco de Asís Tárrega Eixea was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist of the late Romantic period. He is known for such pieces as Capricho Árabe and Recuerdos de la Alhambra.
Pepe Romero is a classical and flamenco guitarist.
Alirio Díaz was a Venezuelan classical guitarist and composer, considered one of the most prominent composer-guitarists of South America and an eminent musician. He studied with Andrés Segovia, and gave concerts all over the world.
Ramírez Guitars is a Spanish manufacturer of professional, concert-quality classical and flamenco guitars. Five generations of the Ramírez family have produced Ramirez guitars.
The following is a bibliography of classical guitar related publications.
Siegfried Behrend was a German classical guitarist and composer.
Rafael Riqueni del Canto, is a Spanish guitar player and composer. He is considered as one of the biggest names or “Maestros” in flamenco guitar history. At age fourteen, he won the two main national awards for flamenco guitar in Spain. As an adult, he has won the most prestigious flamenco music awards in Spain, including: Premio Andalucía de Cultura, Premio Nacional de la Crítica, Giraldillo a la Maestría de la XVIII Bienal de Flamenco y el Premio AIE. In 2017, he was awarded with XXXI Compás del Cante, this award is always referred to by the Spanish media as the "Flamenco Nobel prize".
Leon Koudelak is a Czech classical guitarist.
Irina Kulikova is a Russian classical guitarist.
To a greater extent than most other instruments and ensembles, it is difficult to compose music for the guitar without either proficiency in the instrument or close collaboration with a guitarist. As a result, a large part of the guitar repertoire consists of works by guitarists who did not compose extensively for other instruments. Music prior to the classical era was often composed for performance on various combinations of instruments, and could be adapted by the performer to keyboard instruments, the lute, or the guitar. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, a significant amount of music has been written for the guitar by non-guitarist composers.
Rafael Andia is a French classical guitarist.
Andrés Batista Francisco is a Spanish flamenco guitarist, trained in both classical and flamenco styles.
Eduardo Fernández is a Uruguayan classical guitarist, teacher and arranger-composer. He received prizes in the 1972 Porto Alegre and 1975 Radio France competitions, won the Premio Andrés Segovia in 1975 and debuted in New York in 1977. After his 1983 London debut, Fernández was signed by Decca Records. His textbook has been published in English as Technique, Mechanism, Learning (2002).
Ramón Sánchez Gómez, better known by his stage name Ramón de Algeciras, was a Spanish flamenco guitarist, composer and lyricist. He was the most prolific collaborator of Paco de Lucía, his younger brother, recording with him on most of his albums from the 1960s to 1980s and performing with him throughout much of his life as a rhythm guitarist, including the Paco de Lucía Sextet, formed in 1981, which also included his other brother Pepe de Lucía.
Heinrich Albert was a German guitarist, composer and teacher – the most prominent German classical guitarist of his time.
Daniel Fortea i Guimerà was a Spanish guitarist, composer, and music educator.
Francisco Cimadevilla González was a Spanish guitarist and composer. He was a contemporary of Francisco Tárrega. Cimadevilla mainly transcribed and arranged several well-known guitar pieces, also composing a small number of lounge music and folk music.
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