About

Frank A. Wallace (November 22 1952—June 2, 2020)
composer, guitarist, baritone

It must have been in the stars for Frank Wallace to become a composer and guitar virtuoso: he shared a birthday with composers Benjamin Britten and Joaquín Rodrigo—and died the same day as Andrés Segovia. Hailed as “one of our age’s truly important composers”, Wallace was a rare artist whose wizardry on his instrument rivalled the range and depth of his musical ideas in composition. He left us at 67 at the height of his powers, having enjoyed a distinguished career as a concert and recording artist, composer, director and teacher. The American Record Guide calls Wallace’s music “exciting, unpredictable, and fresh” and Guitar Review “a brilliant collection of new repertoire performed by its composer, who happens to play with equal amounts of grace, sensitivity, and virtuosity.” His colleagues speak with one voice—guitarist Bill Kanengiser: “What a shining and big-hearted spirit, imbued with laughter, love and boundless creativity. [His] grace and artistry are an inspiration to us all.”—composer Stephen Goss: “a wonderful human, a deep thinker and a fantastic musician…Inventiveness, creativity, and fantasy in abundance.”

The threads of his versatility as a composer, performer, teacher and recording engineer are woven into the story of his unusual musical path. As a child he played accordion and jazz guitar. In 1974, degree in hand in classical guitar performance from the San Francisco Conservatory, he headed East, leaving forever the West Coast, where he grew up. In Boston he taught classical guitar at the New England Conservatory. Meanwhile his rich baritone voice and love of singing had led him to join Boston’s vibrant early music scene. There he met singer and visual artist Nancy Knowles, beginning a 46-year partnership in music and life. After four years teaching at NEC, he cut off his guitarist nails to play lute.

From then on Frank’s explorations followed the history of music chronologically, beginning with medieval monody and the beginnings of polyphony, and 16th century part songs. He became renowned as a master of the vihuela de mano as well as the art of self-accompanied song. Singing and playing medieval and renaissance music with voices, lute, oud, gittern, harp, cornetto, flute, viols and vihuela with their ensemble LiveOak, Knowles and Wallace toured internationally to critical acclaim and made many recordings. (“Their eloquence could not have been improved upon.” —The New York Times “This was music on the highest international level” —The San Francisco Chronicle). By the the mid-1990s Knowles and Wallace had found their way to Schubert and Mertz, which Frank played on original 19th century guitars. But his creative soul was restless. He needed a bigger palette for his musical ideas. Inspired by medieval harmonies, Dowland, Schubert, Frank Martin and Britten, it was the lure of composing that inspired his return to classical guitar.

In the rambling 1789 farmhouse on 45 acres of hills and forest in New Hampshire, where he and Knowles ran summer workshops and raised their two sons, Wallace found his creative milieu. On concert tours and in his many recordings and videos, he was known for his grace, passion, and formidable skill on the guitar and its predecessors. At home with family and four dogs he was committed to daily disciplines of meditation, yoga, guitar, voice, composition, scything and chopping wood. Wallace’s passion for excellence never limited his adventurous spirit and sense of wonder. Artistic integrity was his lodestar. He became a virtuoso not to climb a ladder but to delve deep into the music, and to develop his distinctive voice as a self-taught composer for classical guitar. Whether scored for guitar solo or guitar in ensemble, with chamber instruments or voice, presenters dare program full-length concerts of Wallace’s works—an honor few composers enjoy—his output was that varied in style, mood, texture, color, pace, and complexity.
For the last twenty years of his life, Wallace toured throughout Europe, North and South America and recorded—to rave reviews—his own substantial oeuvre for solo guitar (from major concert pieces to simple etudes for students) as well as ensemble works for guitar orchestra, guitar with chamber instruments and, with his mezzosoprano wife Nancy, a large repertoire of song cycles for guitar and voice. His compositions, which fill eight albums, reveal echoes of early music alongside the blues, jazz, and avant garde. Inspired by their many concerts in resonant romanesque churches through Europe, he and Knowles founded Gyre Music, where reside all of his compositions (and the stories behind them) and the many recordings that garnered him kudos for his keen ear as an engineer. He is also known for his many solo guitar videos. He was a longtime blogger about all things musical and eloquently shared his three year journey with ocular melanoma.

Envious of the breadth of repertoire for piano, Frank Wallace was a pioneer in advocating for expanding the traditional classical guitar repertoire, not by arrangements of piano or orchestral works, but by encouraging the performance of new works, solo and ensemble. To that end, during his tenure as artistic director of the Boston Classical Guitar Society he founded Festival 21, which celebrated 21st century music. He was passionate about the expressive potential of classical guitar and voice, woefully neglected in the classical guitar world. He wrote over 100 songs, many of them in song cycles of three to fifteen songs, set to texts by Lorca, Creeley, Roethke, Dickens, Shakespeare, and others, including his grandfather, his wife Nancy Knowles, and himself. The richness and complexity of his song accompaniments and his compelling melodies, informed by a his singing, highlight the influence of his mentors, from Dowland to Schubert to Britten. He always said that his guitar parts were never written as an accompaniment, but rather the guitar and voice are equal in duet.

Wallace’s performances included the Holland Festival, Regensburg Festival, Música en Compostela, Taxco International Guitar Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Barcelona Festival, International Guitar Festival of Arequipa, the Festival of Spanish Song of Granada, and Guitar Foundation of America. He served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, Guitar Foundation of America, Lute Society of America and various universities in New England.

Frank Wallace’s complete works as well as his recordings are available at www.gyremusic.com. Frank proudly engraved all his own works and recorded, edited and mastered his own CDs. His works have been published by Tuscany Publications and featured in Guitar Review, Soundboard, Fingerstyle Magazine and The LSA Quarterly. His chamber music includes an hour long suite called As It Could Be commissioned by the Hartt School for the 50th Anniversary of the Guitar Department. His compositions were twice honored with Artist Fellowship Award of the New Hampshire Council on the Arts’. He was a prize-winner in the José Fernández Rojas 2013 International Composition Competition for his work My Vital Breath for mandolin orchestra. He recorded for Gyre, Titanic, Centaur, and Musical Heritage Society.

During his last year, the New England guitar community honored Wallace by performing tribute concerts of his works in Boston and Hartford. Further honors include the May 2021 Frank Wallace Memorial Festival and Competition presented by Boston Classical Guitar Society featuring William Kanengiser. Frank Wallace’s music will also live on thanks to their Frank A. Wallace Memorial Scholarship.

LINKS

scores and recordings: gyremusic.com
audio: soundcloud.com/frankwallace/playlists
Wallace plays his works: youtube.com/frankwallace

Long known as an elegant and virtuosic performer with Duo LiveOak, Frank Wallace is one of the most prolific composers for guitar solos and ensembles of the past two decades. Wallace is currently focused on solo performance of the repertoire he has known and loved for decades as well as his own new works. Wallace plays and sings 16th century Spanish and Italian works for vihuela de mano and lute in Orpheus’ Lyre. He shares his love for old guitars from his personal collection in Three Spanish Guitars, and performs his own exciting virtuosic guitar solos and songs in Father Said. He has toured widely throughout the U.S., Europe and South America since 1976. Performances include the Holland Festival, Regensburg Festival, Música en Compostela, Taxco International Guitar Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Barcelona Festival, International Guitar Festival of Arequipa, the Festival of Spanish Song of Granada, and Guitar Foundation of America.

Frank Wallace founded and directed for four years the Boston Classical Guitar Society’s Festival 21, celebrating 21st century guitar. He served as the Society’s director from 2007-9. In New York City he founded, and with John Olson co-directed, the Second Sundays Guitar Series run by the New York City Classical Guitar Society and Roger Smith Hotel. He has served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, Guitar Foundation of America, Lute Society of America and various universities in New England. He holds a B.M. in classical guitar performance from San Francisco Conservatory.

Composer

Since the mid 90’s Frank Wallace has been one of the most prolific composers of solos, songs and chamber music with classical guitar. His works fill seven CDs on the Gyre label, which also publishes his complete scores at www.gyremusic.com. He has written over 100 songs in cycles ranging from three to fifteen songs each, with poetry from many ancient and modern sources. His recent chamber music includes an hour long suite called As It Could Be for the Hartt School’s 50th Anniversary of the Guitar Department, commissioned with support from the Augustine Foundation. Gryphon and Woolgathering were both debuted at the Sumartonar Festival in the Faroe islands in July of 2018. Mare Duo of Germany recently recorded a full CD of Wallace’s works for mandolin and guitar called Gargoyles. Many pieces have been recorded by or written for Alturas Duo, Jan Bartlema, Detlev Bork, Boston Guitar Orchestra, ChromaDuo, Ciraldo Duo, Duo Cordes et Ames, Pablo Garibay, Christopher Ladd, Lynn McGrath, Edel Muñoz, New American Mandolin Ensemble, Michael Nicolella, and many more. [See a complete list at www.frankwallace.com/compositions.

Publisher / recording engineer

Frank Wallace’s complete works as well as his recordings are available at www.gyremusic.com, a site rich with information and samples of sheet music, audio and video. Frank has proudly engraved all his own works and recorded, edited and mastered his own CDs. Each category of effort has been highly praised for its integrity, beauty and skill. Frank’s works have been featured in Guitar Review, Soundboard, Fingerstyle Magazine and The LSA Quarterly.

His compositions have been twice honored by the New Hampshire Council on the Arts’ Artist Fellowship Award. First in 2001 for Frank Wallace, his own new works (Gyre 10012), his debut recording on Gyre, and in 2006 for the Duo LiveOak CD Woman of the Water (Gyre 10082). He was a prize-winner in the José Fernández Rojas 2013 International Composition Competition for his work My Vital Breath for mandolin orchestra.

Learn more about Frank in his archived biographies.