Gerard Cousins

Last updated

Gerard Cousins
Guitarist Gerard Cousins.png
Background information
Born (1974-04-12) April 12, 1974 (age 50)
Brecon, Wales
Genres Classical
Occupation(s) Guitarist, composer, arranger
Instrument Guitar
LabelsGalles Music/Orange Mountain Music/Unquiet
Website http://www.gerardcousins.com

Gerard Cousins is a Welsh guitarist, composer and arranger.

Contents

Biography

Gerard Cousins was born in Brecon and studied music at the University of Leeds and ARTEZ Conservatorium (Netherlands) where his principal composition teachers were Philip Wilby and David Rowland. [1] He studied the guitar with Jeremy Herbert, Graham Wade and Louis Ignatius Gall. [2]

Following the tradition of the performer/composer, Gerard Cousins has recorded and performed much of his own music. He has expanded the guitar repertoire with his own arrangements of traditional Welsh music and often works with contemporary composers arranging and recording their music for guitar. Most notably with Philip Glass and Eric Whitacre.[ citation needed ]

Radio France dedicated a show to Cousins' recordings of minimalist guitar music featuring his Philip Glass recordings and his own compositions. [3]

Adam Walton dedicated an hour long show on BBC Wales to Cousins' music in 2015. [4]

Discography

Escape - Philip Glass

Track list:

Opening - Philip Glass*
Metamorphosis 1 - Philip Glass*
Escape - Philip Glass*
Metamorphosis 3 - Philip Glass*
Metamorphosis 5 - Philip Glass*
Knee Play Two - Philip Glass*
Truman Sleeps - Philip Glass*

Lullabies - The Music of Eric Whitacre

Track list:

Goodnight Moon - Eric Whitacre*
Sing Gently - Eric Whitacre*
The Seal Lullaby - Eric Whitacre*
This Marriage - Eric Whitacre*

Una Leyenda

Track list:

Sonatina - Federico Moreno Torroba
Una Leyenda - Pedro Sanjuan
Tiento Antiguo - Joaquin Rodrigo
Capricho Arabe - Francisco Tarrega
Un Tiempo fue Italica Famosa - Joaquin Rodrigo
El testament d'Amelia - Miguel Llobet
Canco de Lladre - Miguel Llobet
El noi de la Mare - Miguel Llobet
Sonata - Antonio Jose
Romance de los Pinos - Federico Moreno Torroba

A Gift

Track list:

Wind Color Vector - Takashi Yoshimatsu
Canticle (from Around the Round Ground) - Takashi Yoshimatsu
Elystan - Gerard Cousins
Viaje a la Semilla - Leo Brouwer
July 18 - Gerard Cousins
A Gift - Robert Jacob
Chant - John Tavener
Hika in Memorium Toru Takemitsu - Leo Brouwer
Tune for Toru - Mark-Anthony Turnage arr. Gerard Cousins

Hiraeth - Celtic Guitar Music from Wales

Track list:

Tros y Garreg (Crossing the Stone) - Trad.*
Gwahoddiad (Arglwydd Dyma Fi) - Trad.*
Fantasia on Ar Lan Y Mor - Trad.*
Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock) - Trad.*
Hiraeth - Grace Williams* (1906-1977)
Amanda's Delight (from 2 pieces for guitar) - Robert Smith
A Short Verse for Edward Thornburgh - Thomas Tomkins* (1572- 1656)
A Sad Pavan Forbidding Mourning - Hilary Tann (b. 1947)
Olwyn Ddwr (Water Wheel) - Gareth Glyn* (b. 1951)
Crossing Water Alone - Simon Thorne* (b. 1954)
Teifi's Dream (Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau) - Trad.*

The First Beat is the Last Sound

Track list:

Assyrian Game - Gerard Cousins
Ripening Prelude - Gerard Cousins
Lisa Lan - Gerard Cousins
Suo Gan (Variations and Toccata on a Welsh Lullaby) - Gerard Cousins
In the Grip part 1 (homage to Philip Glass) - Gerard Cousins
White Cloud Blue Sky (homage to John McLaughlin) - Gerard Cousins
Cantus Tintinnabulous (homage to Arvo Part) - Gerard Cousins
In the Grip part 2 - Gerard Cousins
The Sound of One Hand Clapping (homage to Steve Reich) - Gerard Cousins
Minimi (for 2 guitars) - Gerard Cousins
This Marriage - Eric Whitacre (arranged by Gerard Cousins)

Podcasts

Gerard Cousins has been interviewed on "The Next Track" [5] and "Guitaronamie" [6] podcasts.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical guitar</span>

The classical guitar, also known as 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 instruments such as the lute, the vihuela, the gittern, which evolved into the Renaissance guitar and into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Glass</span> American composer (born 1937)

Philip Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped to evolve stylistically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrés Segovia</span> Spanish guitarist (1893–1987)

Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña was a Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist. Many professional classical guitarists were either students of Segovia or students of Segovia's students. Segovia's contribution to the modern-romantic repertoire included not only commissions but also his own transcriptions of classical or baroque works. He is remembered for his expressive performances: his wide palette of tone, and his distinctive musical personality, phrasing and style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Lloyd Webber</span> British cellist and conductor (born 1951)

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.

Contemporary classical music is Western art music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included serial music, electronic music, experimental music, and minimalist music. Newer forms of music include spectral music and post-minimalism.

<i>The Jethro Tull Christmas Album</i> 2003 studio album by Jethro Tull

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album is the 21st studio album released by Jethro Tull, on 30 September 2003. This was the band's last studio album for 19 years, as well as the last album to feature the lineup of Ian Anderson, guitarist Martin Barre, bassist Jonathan Noyce, keyboardist Andrew Giddings, and drummer Doane Perry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miguel Llobet</span> Spanish guitarist

Miguel Llobet Solés was a classical guitarist, born in Barcelona, Spain. Llobet was a renowned virtuoso who toured Europe and America extensively. He made well known arrangements of Catalan folk songs for the solo guitar, made famous arrangements for the guitar of the piano compositions of Isaac Albéniz, arrangements immortalized by Andrés Segovia, and was also the composer of original works.

The King's Singers are a British a cappella vocal ensemble founded in 1968. They are named after King's College in Cambridge, England, where the group was formed by six choral scholars. In the United Kingdom, their popularity peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter they began to reach a wider American audience, appearing frequently on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the United States. In 1987, they were prominently featured as guests on the Emmy Award-winning ABC television special Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.

Kazuhito Yamashita is a Japanese classical guitarist and husband of the composer Keiko Fujiie. His technique and expression are highly acclaimed. By the age of 32, Yamashita had already released 52 albums, including repertoires for solo guitar, guitar concertos, chamber music and collaborations with other renowned musicians such as James Galway. To date, he has released a total of 83 albums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Phillips (guitarist)</span> Musical artist

Robert Phillips is an American classical guitarist.

Philip Lawson is a British choral conductor, composer and arranger. For 18 years he was a baritone with the King's Singers and the group's principal arranger for the last fifteen years of that period. In 2009 the group's album "Simple Gifts", on which Lawson arranged 10 out of 15 tracks, won the Grammy award for "Best Classical Crossover Album". In February 2012, he left the King's Singers to concentrate on his writing career.

Early recordings for the classical guitar had often have a low or limited audio quality since recording technology was just in its beginning phases, with the earliest known guitar sound recorded in either 1853 or 1854 recorded the phonautograph by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The phonautogram features a snippet of Adolphe Giacomelli playing a few notes on guitar, though it is unintelligible as a result of the recording’s brevity and low quality. A later guitar sound of a few notes was recorded was done by using the phonograph type invented by Thomas Edison on 18 July 1877, which used phonograph cylinders as a recording medium. Classical guitar recording quality greatly improved along with technological improvements to the phonograph and the development of the gramophone record in the 1900s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical guitar repertoire</span> Set of available musical works for classical guitar

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.

Timo Korhonen is a Finnish classical guitarist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists in his generation.

This is a list of compositions by Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu for guitar.

Águas da Amazônia, Sete ou oito peças para um balé is a 1993–99 musical composition by the American contemporary classical composer Philip Glass. Its first recording was performed by the Brazilian instrumental group Uakti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siete canciones populares españolas</span> 1914 set of traditional Spanish songs

Siete Canciones populares Españolas is a 1914 set of traditional Spanish songs arranged for soprano and piano by the composer Manuel de Falla. Besides being Falla's most-arranged composition and one of his most popular, it is one of the most frequently performed sets of Spanish-language art songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chetty's Lullaby</span> 1962 jazz song composed by Chet Baker

"Chetty's Lullaby" is a 1962 jazz song composed by Chet Baker. The song was released as a single in 1962 in Italy.

This is a summary of 1925 in music in the United Kingdom.

References

  1. "Gerard Cousins | Tŷ Cerdd composer database | Welsh music".
  2. "#Interview with Gerard Cousins (October 2016) on #neuguitars #blog". 26 October 2016.
  3. "Philip Glass à la guitare, par Gérard Cousins". 11 October 2020.
  4. "BBC Radio Wales - BBC Introducing with Adam Walton, Adam Walton Presents".
  5. "The Next Track Podcast". thenexttrack.com. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  6. "The Guitaromanie Podcast".