It is with great pleasure that I introduce Canadian Guitarist Adam Foster. I remember when I first came to Victoria when I was 18 years old and knowing virtually nothing about classical guitar besides my childhood lessons. I recall seeing Adam’s graduation recital at the University of Victoria and it was among some of my first classical guitar concerts that I attended. I was studying with Murray Visscher at the time but was also getting influenced by Alexander Dunn’s masterclasses and many of his student’s recitals. It was obvious, even at the time, that Adam was going to go places, and indeed he has. Along with recently completing his doctorate and concertizing as a soloist, Adam is also the newest member of the excellent Tantalus Guitar Quartet!
Links:
Recordings: Tantalus – Debut
“Works for guitar quartet inspired by classical, folk, and latin music with virtuosity and verve. Hailed by audiences from the US to Europe.”
Interview with Adam Foster
August 2011
You recently completed your DM under Bruce Holzman, can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
There were many things first of all that brought me to Florida State to study with Bruce and continue my studies of performance and musical “research”. I had first met him in 2000 at the Domaine Forget Summer Guitar Academy where he teaches annually with other wonderful pedagogues in St. Irenee, Quebec. Between that summer of 2000 and the fall of 2003, I studied with Ricardo Cobo in Las Vegas, who provided hours upon hours of lesson times in the wee hours of the morning fuelled with some of the finest espresso ever created. Ricardo’s energy is all-encompassing, and one can’t help but being absorbed into his soundworld. After the dust settled, I ended up teaching at UNLV for four years following my Masters, teaching private lessons, ensemble, music theory, and music appreciation courses. After some time studying on my own, performing recitals, teaching masterclasses in the Clark County School District, I felt a need to return to school with a teacher who would clarify and refine my musical ideas even further. I learned so much from my former teachers and I still value everything they taught me, but I felt Bruce was the glue that would bring it all together.
During my time at Florida State, Bruce had this innate ability to clarify what was going on inside my head for me when I performed for him. Many students of his have numerous anecdotes from lessons with Bruce, but my main impression in studying with him is that he was the mirror of my sound at any given moment. If I sounded unrehearsed or unprepared, he let me know it! The main caveat here though is that in every performance situation (aka lesson), he was always wanting to improve my sound, clarify my musical ideas, and in the long term, develop confidence and security in those ideas. His years upon years of listening has given him the ability to cut through to the essence of a technical or musical issue, taking away any of the unimportant ideas and distilling what was truly needed to fix it. Sometimes, the best advice he would provide would be, “maybe you should just play better?!”
How did you decide what you were going to research for your treatise? What was your focus?
Surprisingly, that was the hardest part of the degree for me. To me, research is multi-faceted and requires a tremendous amount of time developing a core set of materials in which to work from, and it’s difficult to balance that with a daily practice regimen…not to mention teaching and performing for sustenance. As all graduate students know, those stipends just aren’t quite enough! There was this self-imposed pressure to live up to some of the fine researchers who have contributed to the field of guitar music. Some are more convincing than others: but, I find the best researchers elucidate the process of a composer work through the lenses of the society they write for, and the performers who collaborated with them. After much careful consideration and hours upon hours of reading, I ended up writing a treatise about the chamber works of Hans Haug, a Swiss composer who developed relationships with other guitarists including Andres Segovia, Louise Walker, and Konrad Ragossnig. In the process of doing my research, I worked mainly on expanding Haug’s reception history by contacting people who worked with Haug over the course of his career in Switzerland, including guitarist Konrad Ragossnig and conductor/composer Michel Rochat. Through these two men, they shared much information about Haug as a composer and teacher and this led to findings about the collaborative nature of Haug with other performers, as well as unique theoretical aspects about his compositional style.
How did you come to be a member of the excellent Tantalus Guitar Quartet?
Chamber music has always been a focus for me as a performer. To me, chamber music with guitar is the most fascinating and most important part of our musical canon. The texture of the guitar is so well suited for chamber music, so I have always made a point to perform with others as much I as could. As for the Tantalus Guitar Quartet, one of the members, guitarist and singer Matt Cochran teaches in Albany, Georgia, and asked me to performed a solo concert and give a masterclass at Darton College in the fall of 2010. A few months later, they were in need of a new member as one of their long-standing members, Kevin Manderville decided to pursue other solo and chamber music projects. I was invited to audition for the group at the Louisville Guitar Festival in Kentucky, a wonderful festival run by Stephen Mattingly, also a member of the Quartet. I was given the scores a month ahead of time and we had two rehearsals during the festival. They were kind enough after the festival to offer me the spot which I of course, accepted.
Joining the Quartet was really exciting for me, particularly in light of direction the group is heading in terms of repertoire and professional exposure. All the members have very unique, individual musical personalities which enrich and diversify our sound as an ensemble. They are also great people to work with as well, and loads of fun to be with as well. When we’re not rehearsing or performing, one can smell the grill for miles around, and can hear laughter till the wee hours. We’re all foodies at heart and aficionados of the finer things life offers us. We have a ton of fun together and I think that energy translates to our audiences on stage.
Is there anything in particular that drew you to the classical guitar when you were a youth student? Were there any specific influences that really stuck with you?
I was very lucky to grow up in Victoria, which boasts a thriving guitar scene, thanks to Dr. Alexander Dunn. With the activities of the Victoria Guitar Society, the Victoria Conservatory, and the excellent School of Music at the University of Victoria, I was surrounded by talent, enthusiasm and a willingness to absorb myself completely in my studies. Before entering the University, I studied with Ian DeHoog who taught with great enthusiasm, joy, and a strong sense of purpose with each piece of music or lesson. He provided me with a strong base for beginning my studies. When I began to work with Alex, he just opened my world to the guitar, the repertoire, and brought a sense of responsibility to perform with integrity and reverence for the sonic world it creates for the audience.
If you had some advice for aspiring guitar students what would it be?
Aside from finding a good teacher, I think the most important thing for any musician is to sight read every day. Also, I would say that one should enrich their musical life and develop their concept of sound by listening to as much non-guitar musicians as possible: pianists, orchestras, string quartets, percussion ensembles, rock groups, etc. These sound worlds help us as guitarists try to recreate Beethoven’s mind-view of the guitar as a “mini-orchestra” when we perform. All these sonic experiences, I believe, help us groove.
What’s next for Adam Foster?
Mainly working with the Tantalus Quartet on the 2011-2012 concert season which includes concerts at the Iserlohn Festival in Germany, Tichy Guitar Festival in Poland, as well as a tour of Panama and regional concerts in the United States. We’ll make it up to Canada eventually! Some of the artist rosters we share the stage with in Iserlohn and Tichy are staggering— artists I truly admire. It’s an honor to share the stage with them and all the while meet new friends along the way.
Aside from the Quartet duties, I am preparing a recording project of the music of Hans Haug in conjunction with the Bibliotheque Cantonale et Universitaire Vaud in Lausanne, Switzerland to premiere some of his unpublished chamber music featuring the guitar. I am also preparing a complete “solo guitar works” recording of Haug with his published chamber pieces highlighted in my treatise.
Biography
via www.adamfosterguitar.com/about
Award-winning guitarist and teacher Dr. Adam Foster has developed a depth of experience as a performer in solo recital and chamber settings throughout the US and Canada. He has garnered awards in regional and national competitions including the 2001 Northwest Guitar Competition. His principle teachers on guitar include Bruce Holzman, Ricardo Cobo and Alexander Dunn.
His creative interests include rarely heard or underperformed chamber works with guitar. He recently performed the American premiere of Stephen Dodgson’s Quintet for Guitar and Strings in 2009 as well as recent chamber performances of works by Marlos Nobre, Astor Piazzolla, and Hans Haug. His doctoral treatise focused on the chamber works of Swiss composer Hans Haug as well as furthering the reception history of Haug as a composer in collaboration with former students and performers who worked with Haug including Michel Rochat, and Konrad Ragossnig. In addition to his solo endeavors, he is an active member of the Tantalus Guitar Quartet alongside members Kristian Anderson, Matthew Cochran, and Stephen Mattingly.
As a teacher, his students have been accepted to studies in various colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He was formerly a member of the guitar faculty at the University of Nevada Las Vegas where he was awarded the Part-time Instructor of the Year Award by the College of Fine Arts in 2006. He currently maintains a thriving private studio in Tallahassee and presents his students in recital every six months.
In addition to his musical endeavors, he is an amateur performer on 8-course Renaissance Lute, French Theorbo and Tenor Viol da Gamba. He also is an avid cook and an aficionado of fine wines. He lives with his wife, poet Stacey Abbott in Tallahassee, Florida.
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