A boy named Alain owned a nylon-string instrument, which Garcia borrowed to learn folk songs. Garcia the guitarist was awakened, and soon found kindred spirits at his Catholic boarding school in Leicestershire. “It was probably something ordinary, but it was very rhythmic, and I thought ‘This is an amazing machine,’” recalls Garcia. It was on that trip that young Garcia heard his first Spanish guitar, played by a man entertaining his girlfriend by the swimming pool on the ship’s deck. “They really wanted me and my brother to do anything that we were good at,” says Garcia. Garcia’s father, a judge, and his mother, a government secretary, intended for their sons to attend the best schools. Garcia was originally transported to England at the age of 12, accompanied by his brother and parents on a ship from Hong Kong. Garcia’s saga, I learned, is a classic tale of how music connects people.
CLASSICAL GUITAR SHED TREMOLO FULL
To hear the full story, I had the pleasure of being invited to The Shed-a party space and temple to the arts that Garcia built at the foot of his wonderfully alive Oxford, England, garden. “I’m meeting fantastic players, I’m learning from them as much as they learned from me.” “It’s exciting and fresh again,” explains Garcia. Lately, though, the versatile Garcia (he is also a conductor of considerable renown) has found renewed zest for music-making after a debilitating hand injury and ensuing long recovery derailed his playing career for many years.
It has been 40 years since Garcia was last on the receiving end of ovations onstage in Beijing 20 or so since touring with John Williams as a duo across mainland China. Just recently, Garcia produced the newest album by innovative guitarist/composer Johannes Möller. As a teacher and classical guitar world fixture, he has guided the hands of and opened many doors for some of today’s most celebrated performers. Garcia’s own works and arrangements have been performed by such players as the Eden Stell Guitar Duo, Xuefei Yang, and David Russell, to name just three. Garcia was the first guitarist to record for Naxos, for whom he has made more than a dozen albums and also contributed as an arranger. The channel is delightfully typical of this artist, who has appeared in Classical Guitar under numerous guises-cover subject, performer, critiqued composer, and critic himself-throughout a rich, ever-evolving, and evergreen career in music. We encounter guitarists in various stages of preparedness, captured from Baltimore to Chengdu. Through Garcia’s roving smartphone we joke backstage with Craig Ogden and Xuefei Yang, or sidle up to a somewhat startled Stephen Goss over breakfast. The YouTube channel of Gerald Garcia could almost be described as avant-garde, with its casual look and unusually candid approach. Beside her is a jovial fellow with sparkling eyes, whose face may not be familiar, though he has shaped the classical guitar landscape in very meaningful ways ever since falling for the instrument as a boy. “P ractice! Practice!” smiles Su Meng, straight into the camera. BY PAUL DAVIES | FROM THE FALL 2018 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR
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