Description
The Italian guitarist and composer Ganesh Del Vescovo, today considered a virtuoso of the classical guitar, began his guitar studies as a self-taught musician. An important meeting with Alvaro Company, a pupil of Andrès Segovia, brought him to follow Company's courses at the Conservatory of Florence, where he graduated with full grades, cum laude and honourable mention "for his extraordinary skill in portraying the character and mood of the pieces performed." Throughout his career he has concentrated on the many periods of the guitar repertoire - Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern and Contemporary - and has also developed a personal technique of transcription from other instruments. His concert repertoire includes his own transcriptions of authors such as Bach, Frescobaldi, Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, Debussy and Verdi. Straight from the start Del Vescovo's activity as a composer developed at the same pace as the study of the instrument itself. Throughout the years he has continued to experiment new guitar techniques, and has also developed a very personal musical concept, partly inspired by his meeting with Indian classical music and musicians. Rather than using the more formal aspects of this tradition, he freely draws inspiration from the aesthetic experience, the spirit and the strength of expression of this musical world. He also plays the sarod, an ancient Indian string instrument, and the tabla, and has composed original pieces for both. His approach to composition, which has developed through the exploration of sounds, rhythms and timbres which carry the musician and the listener to particular inner moods and atmospheres, has inevitably led to the necessity to modify the classical guitar. Two new instruments were thus created: the "Chikari Guitar" and the "Sarod Guitar", which have the function of a flexible drone and which also allow a free use of glissé techniques and a very deep non-tempered sound effect. He has presented these instruments, showing their relative techniques, in various guitar Festivals and events. He has also given many Master Classes and Seminars relative to the techniques he has explored. He has performed as a soloist in many concert halls in Italy and abroad and has also played chamber music ensembles. Publications of the music of Ganesh Del Vescovo include: with Sinfonica Nuova Carisch, Studi accompanied by a cd interpreted by the composer; Dodici studi di transizione accompanied by a cd interpreted by the composer; Tre studi giovanili; Tre reminiscenze per chitarra; Jasidih Express; Sandhya; and, for guitar and flute, Three Dhuns. He has also recorded a cd of his own music published by the same publishing house and in 2010 he also published the guitar transcription of Children's Corner by Debussy including a CD. The guitarist Andrea Vettoretti has recorded, for Phoenix Editions, Tre reminiscenze and Sei studi di transizione. The Tre reminiscenze are present as well in the concert repertoire of Kazuhito Yamashita, who also gave the first performance in September 2005, in Nagasaki, of the composition dedicated to him called "Suite "alla montagna". In January 2006, in a concert in Tokyo, the same musician performed Ganesh Del Vescovo's transcription for guitar of Schubert's "Six moments Musicaux" on occasion of their publication by Gendai Guitar. In 2009 he has published a DVD with GMC Guitar Media Collection. He holds regular concerts and Master Classes in Italy and abroad. In 2011 he received first prize for composition at the International Festival "Claxica 2011" at Castel d'Aiano, Bologna with the piece for guitar solo Schegge di luce ("Splinters of Light"). The great Italian poet Mario Luzi has written about him: "Throughout the years I have heard Del Vescovo play many times on different occasions and have always felt I had entered into an enchanted sphere made up of the emotions and feelings of a beautiful musical talent: a very personal sphere which communicates and has moments of radiance."
