Album Notes

"On this disc, three of the works – Pleskow’s Quatrain (tiny, delicate, and mysterious), Rovics’s Three Concert Pieces (abstract and aphoristic), and Savage’s Passing Through (elegiac, but not too sweet) – were composed for Becker and are recorded here for the first time. These are attractive works, and I will assume that Becker’s recordings are definitive unless someone gives me a reason to believe otherwise! ..... It is well worth considering." - Raymond Tuttle -
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/r/rng52815a.php


Harris Becker has had a rich and varied career as a guitarist and lutenist. He has performed extensively both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Mexico, and Canada. His interest in contemporary music has offered him the opportunity to premiere many new works by renowned composers including Carlo Domeniconi, Hayley Savage, Raoul Pleskow, Howard Rovics, and Johnny Reinhard.

In addition to his career as a performer he has been very involved in the as an educator, adjudicator, giving master classes, workshops and lectures. Harris Becker is director of guitar studies at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and has been on the music faculties of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and the International Institute for Chamber Music at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich. The Florida State Division of Cultural Affairs selected Mr. Becker to be part of Florida's Artist Residency Program, giving lecture/performances on the lute and baroque guitar. In 2007 Mr. Becker received a faculty recognition award for outstanding service from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Long Island University.

Mr. Becker is Director of the Long Island Guitar Festival, which he founded in 1993. Mr. Becker is also co-founder of a summer music festival in rural Quebec: “Songe d’été en Musique”. His other recordings include Catgut Flambo with guitarist Pasquale Bianculli. Fanfare Magazine wrote: “Becker and Bianculli have techniques that are beyond reproach. They eschew bright colors and a brash performance style, and they seem most comfortable with being mellow and quietly insinuating”.

Passing Through, Three Concert Pieces and Quatrain were written for Harris Becker and are premiere recordings.