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Nigel Morgan studied the Classical Guitar with Hector Quine in London and Alexander Bellow in New York. During the 70s and 80s he specialised in the contemporary repertoire of the instrument giving many first performances of works including music by Thea Musgrave, Edward MacGuire, Elisabeth Lutyens, David Bedford, Barry Russell, Tim Souster, Julio D’Escrivan, Andy Jackson, William Bolcom, Patric Standford, Patrick Brandon, and Denis ApIvor. In the early 80s he gave a series of complete performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Spiral with sound diffusion by Paul Edwards. At Cambridge he formed a guitar quartet to perform, tour and record Andy Jackon’s unique music theatre work Romances. With guitarist Paul Edwards he also gave the first performance of Andy Jackson’s Goose and the Blackbird.
More recently he has created several novel programmes featuring rarely heard 19C music and new music from the USA and Latin America
During 2006-7 Nigel Morgan will be performing and recording all of the solo music of the Welsh composer Denis ApIvor. In the seventies Nigel commissioned and gave many first performances of music by this controversial composer, one of the first post-war modernist composers – contemporary of Humphrey Searle and Elisabeth Lutyens.
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[Performance and Recording]
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Le Guitarre Francais
This recital features a complete performance of Matteo Carcassi’s Etude Melodiques Op 60 from a manuscript copy thought to have belonged to Hector Berlioz. Although the Etudes are the common currency of every student guitarist the complete set contains in its later half some demanding and revelatory music, rarely if ever played.
To complement the Carcassi the recital includes music by his Italian contemporary Francisco Molino and Mauro Guiliani’s illegitimate daughter Emilia – a series of Etudes that are closer to the world of Villa-Lobos than her father’s music. Music by the teenage Berlioz completes the programme.
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Music of the Americas
Nigel Morgan has long enjoyed the diverse music of the Americas. In this programme he devotes a first half to music from Latin America culminating in a performance of Leo Brouwer’s Le Decamaron Negre – Nigel Morgan was one of the very first guitarist to play this in the UK. He also includes music by Venezuelan composers Antonio Lauro (The Venezuelan Suite) and Julio D’Escrivan. In part two Nigel plays William Bolcom’s rarely performed composition The Seasons – an evocative and brilliant piece involving the audience (as wind machines) and incorporating bluegrass and ragtime elements. He completes the programme with music on acoustic guitar by James Taylor and John Fahey
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The Solo Guitar Music of Denis ApIvor
Nigel Morgan studied composition with Denis ApIvor in the mid seventies. He has conducted many of his ensemble compositions and promoted his music widely. He has played nearly all the composer’s solo and chamber works for the guitar and commissioned Liaison for guitar and electric piano for his London debut in 1976. He gave the first performances of Variations (commissioned, but never played, by Julian Bream), Saeta, Serenade and the guitar version of the Seis Canciones de Federico Garcia Lorca, Op. 8b (1946).
The programme contains:
Variations, Op. 29 (1959).
Discanti, Op. 48 (1970).
Saeta, Op. 53 (1972).
Serenade, Op. 69 (1980).
In addition the recital can include the rarely performed Five by Humphrey Searle and Romanza by Elisabeth Lutyens or a performance of Nigel Morgan’s own Dreaming Aloud.
All enquires about recital availability please contact Phil Legand, at Tonality Systems (UK) 01924 383017.