Composer
Biography:
Roland Chadwick (born 22 May 1957) received a guitar as a gift on his 13th birthday and immediately began composing. The result of his very first self-taught attempts at composition later became the source material for Song and Dance No. 1. After three years of guitar lessons and without any formal composition studies, he wrote the suite Dances for Winter Oakwood, which is still performed worldwide today. He is now one of the most prolific composers of classical guitar music in England.
He made his debut as a guitarist at the Sydney Opera House Broadwalk Theatre. This was followed by concert tours to various countries such as Italy, Sweden, England and Mexico, where he officially represented his home country Australia at the Cervantino Festival in 1989. He was a founding member of the Sydney Guitar Quartet. Together with some of Australia's most prominent string players, including the outstanding German violist Hartmut Lindemann, he founded the Paganini Project. After moving to England, he played with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and for all the leading English guitar associations, among others. With his virtuoso colleagues Vincent Lindsey-Clark and Roland Gallery, he founded the Modern Guitar Trio, with whom he recorded some of his trio works (Letter from LA, The Wendy House, Rococo Café and The Memory of Water).
His recordings with Steve Vai, Barriemore Barlow (Jethro Tull) and the English Chamber Orchestra have achieved cult status in their genre. He has also played with top artists such as Mike Lindup from Level 42, Sir George Martin and Alan Glen from the Yardbirds.
Roland Chadwick's wide-ranging compositional output extends from works for solo classical guitar to art songs and ballets (performed by the San Francisco Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre, among others) to experimental jazz, guitar concertos and prog blues. Singers and guitarists such as David Daniels (Virgin Records), Sarah Poole (Prima Facie Records), Craig Ogden, Cedric Honings, the Sydney Guitar Quartet and Detlev Bork have recorded or performed his music live. Roland Chadwick's works are published by the Danish publisher Bergmann Edition.
Albums:
The Beast of Many Colours – new music for classical guitar:
