Introducing the Open Frets Guitar
IGRC graduate Dr Katalin Koltai has released a film documenting the development of her new Open Frets Guitar at the Royal Academy of Music.
The Nature of Music lecture series – Gresham College
Professor Milton Mermikides has completed his inaugural lecture series at Gresham College. The Nature of Music examines how music exploits our innate and highly evolved listening faculties in order to communicate complex and otherwise inexpressible emotions. Using a diverse range of examples – from Bach to Beatles, Bossa to Björk, Bartók to Billie Holliday – we explore the universal building blocks of prediction, rhythm, pitch, scale, dissonance and multiplicity in the musical experience. The complete series is now available to…
Hidden Music – The Composer’s Guide to Sonification
Professor Milton Mermikides’ first book Hidden Music– The Composer’s Guide to Sonification has been published by Cambridge University Press. The book reveals the what, how and why of sonification and data music practices; and their role and potential in scientific and artistic communication.
Stephen Goss Releases Triple Album
On 18th October 2024, Professor Stephen Goss released his triple album entitled ‘Landscape and Memory’. Released by Deus Elle Classical recordings label, the album has been described as his most ambitious recording project yet.
IGRC Jeff Beck Article (The Conversation)
Milton Mermikides and John McGrath‘s contribution on the musical contributions of Jeff Beck in The Conversation
21st Century Guitar – Bloomsbury
Release of the 21st Century Guitar Evolutions and Augmentations Richard Perks (Anthology Editor), John McGrath (Anthology Editor) With contributions from IGRC members Tom Williams, Katalin Koltai Amy Brandon and more Table of Contents ContributorsAcknowledgementsForewordIntroduction Richard Perks and John McGrath1. The Well-Tuned Guitar John Schneider2. Transforming the Microtonal Fingerboard: ‘Small’ Frets, LEGO and Robots – Interview with Tolgahan Çogulu Richard Perks3. The Expanding Fretless Guitarscape: Practice and Progress Richard Perks4. Touching the Apple Without Gloves – Interview with Cenk Erdogan Richard Perks5. Extended Range Instruments: Towards a…
21st Century Guitar: Evolutions and Augmentations (forthcoming book for January 2023)
Edited by Richard Perks & John McGrath With contributions and insights from John Schneider, Tolgahan Çoğulu, Ned Evett, Buzz Gravelle, Cenk Erdoğan, Tom Williams, Ant Law, Charlie Hunter, Katalin Koltai, Robert Strachan, Richard Perks, John McGrath, Nels Cline, Bill Thompson, Milton Mermikides and Amy Brandon In the 21st Century, the guitar, as both a material object and tool for artistic expression, continues to be reimagined and reinvented. From simple adaptations or modifications made by performers themselves, to custom-made instruments commissioned…
GFA22 Keynote
IGRC Deputy Director Milton Mermikides gave the Guitar Foundation of America Keynote in June 2022. Watch it here
Katalin Koltai gave lecture-recital,’New soundscapes on the Ligeti Guitar: Bartók, Chopin, Kurtág and Mulvey’ at the Guitar Foundation of America 2022 Convention
AbstractThis lecture-recital explores a new world of guitar sonorities through novel arrangements; Chopin: Berceuse Op. 57, Saariaho: Nocturne and Kurtág: Ligatura Y performed on a new instrument prototype, the ‘Ligeti Guitar’.In collaboration with the Altamira Guitar Foundation, Hanson Yao and Oren Myers, the ‘Ligeti guitar’ was developed in 2021. The new prototype integrates an adjustable magnet capo system into a transformed fretboard. Koltai designed the magnet capo system originally as a new set of partial capos (2018-2020), also presented in…
Roots – Dimitris Soukaras on Naxos
IGRC PGR Dimitrios Soukaras has released ‘Roots’ on Naxos CD. The music in this programme covers a spectrum of genres that have flourished in Greece in recent years, from jazz to contemporary avant-garde. These have all had a strong impact on guitarist Dimitris Soukaras’s development as an artist, and in making this recording he took the opportunity to invite some of Greece’s leading composers to write for his instrument for the first time. All works are world premiere recordings.