Eliot Hamilton Fisk (born August 10, 1954) is an American classical guitarist.

Music career

Education and teaching

Fisk was born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia. He finished high school in DeWitt, New York, and then studied music at Yale University with harpsichordists Ralph Kirkpatrick and Albert Fuller. He received both B.A. and M.S. degrees, and in 1977 started Yale's guitar department. He was a student of guitarists Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Díaz, and Andrés Segovia. He received private lessons from Segovia over the years and was his last private student.

Transcriptions, commissions

Fisk has increased the amount of material available to classical guitarists by transcribing music written for other instruments. This increased repertoire includes his transcriptions of Bach, Scarlatti, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn and Schubert.

Recording

In the 1990s, Segovia's widow gave Fisk unpublished compositions by Segovia. Fisk turned these compositions into Segovia: Canciones Populares, which became a bestseller on the Classical Album chart of Billboard magazine.

Awards and honors

  • First place, International Guitar Competition, Gargnano, Italy (1980)
  • Grammy Award nomination, Mountain Songs (1987)
  • Grand Cross of Isabel la Cátolica, for contribution to Spanish music (2006)
  • Teacher of the Year, New England Conservatory (2010)
  • Best Classical Guitarist, Guitar Player magazine Readers Poll

Views on guitarists

Eliot Fisk has said:

  • "It's true that Segovia didn't get compositions from Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and a lot of composers we would like to have pieces from. Maybe he was in a position to have done that, but on the other hand, who among us has done as much as he did? If other people were interested, they could've tried to commission them. Besides, this criticism of Segovia is pointless. If you disagree with what Segovia did, take that energy and go out and do something positive. Otherwise, shut up."

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References

Further reading

  • Profile of Eliot Fisk.
  • Profile of Eliot Fisk.
  • Official site