Frank Wallace, Composer, Guitarist & Lutenist, Antrim

Frank Wallace was born in Houston, TX and attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA then received his Bachelor of Music in classical guitar performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He attended the Quadrivium School and received private lessons in voice with Marleen Montgomery and Marcy Lindheimer, among others.

He is a former faculty member of the New England Conservatory and Plymouth State University. In the early 1980s he began full-time performance of Medieval and Renaissance music with his ensemble LiveOak and Company. He has distinguished himself, not only as a dynamic soloist and accompanist on classical and romantic guitars, but he is also a leading player of the viheula de mano, a 16th century Spanish instrument shaped like a small guitar, tuned like a lute, with double courses of strings and light construction.

Wallace has performed at early music festivals including Utrecht, Regensburg, and Boston, and also has performed, lectured and taught at Lute Society of America seminars; the Holland Festival/Utrecht, Amherst, Early Music Week; and the Guitar Foundation of America Festival. Currently, he performs with his wife, soprano Nancy Knowles, as Duo LiveOak and occasionally as a soloist. Their include guitar, mandolin and lute, and feature Wallace’s own works and arrangements. In 2000 they founded the Gyre Record Label.

The Stubborn Oak, one of Wallace’s major compositions for solo classical guitar, 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.

“The guitar pervades our culture. It is itself an icon. But that icon can cause prejudices in the classical realm and limit expression and education in the popular realm,” explains Wallace. “After two decades of performing works from several different centuries… I have now begun to compile a large list of my own compositional contributions, hoping to break the mold of the typical classical guitar and expand the horizons of young students.”

This is Wallace's second Fellowship from the State Arts Council.

For more information visit http://www.frankwallace.com/

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Last updated: October 25, 2005