Album Notes

Frank Wallace's works for guitar, lute and voice are the fruit of a colorful career in music that has been most unusual in his generation of guitarists. Wallace has distinguished himself not only as a dynamic soloist and accompanist on classical and romantic guitars, but he is also recognized as a leading player of the vihuela de mano* and lute. Possibly his most astounding skill is as a master of self-accompanied song, singing and playing the solo songs of renaissance Italy and Spain, Elizabethan England and Schubert with equal attention to the subtleties of melody, words, and accompaniments. Those who know the sophistication of both the sung melodies and their accompaniments in these repertoires joke that "The man was born with two brains!" Frank Wallace, his own new works (Gyre 10012) , Wallace's debut recording on Gyre of his own compositions, won him a 2001 Artist Fellowship grant from the Arts Council of New Hampshire. His previous recordings can be heard on Titanic Records, Musical Heritage Society, and Centaur Records.

Wallace's composition for solo classical guitar, The Stubborn Oak, was published in October 2000 by Tuscany Publications and is distributed worldwide by Theodore Presser. In 2003 Gyre Publications launched an ambitious publishing project, Frank Wallace Editions. Most of Wallace's compositions are now available in print as part of this series. Each edition is exquisite, featuring high quality printings of Wallace's works, with Nancy Knowles' art photographs on the covers.

As an outstanding young classical guitarist from San Francisco Conservatory in the 70's, Wallace joined the guitar faculty at New England Conservatory, while also studying early music with Marleen Montgomery. In the early 80's, he began full-time performance of medieval and renaissance music with his ensemble LiveOak and Company. He has performed at many of the leading early music festivals including Utrecht, Regensburg and Boston, and has also performed, lectured and taught at a number of Lute Society of America Seminars, the Holland Festival/Utrecht, Amherst Early Music Week and the Guitar Foundation of America Festival. Wallace currently performs with soprano Nancy Knowles as Duo LiveOak and occasionally as a soloist. Their concerts span the ages from medieval to contemporary, with guitar and its ancestors, featuring Wallace's own works and arrangements. In 2000 the duo founded the Gyre record label as a way to best represent the broad spectrum of their work.

Devoted to playing only the finest of instruments, Frank Wallace always uses instruments that are authentic to the repertoire, whenever possible using actual period pieces. Two beautiful 19th century guitars from his collection were on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the 2000-2001 exhibition Dangerous Curves: the Art of the Guitar. Wallace currently performs and records primarily on modern guitars by Ignacio Fleta and Dake Traphagen, an 1854 Manuel Gutierrez and lutes and vihuelas by Joel van Lennep.

*The king of instruments in the courts of 16th century Spain, the vihuela de mano is shaped like a small guitar, tuned like a lute, with double courses of strings and light construction.