Guitar Days: Hopkinson Smith

"Hopkinson Smith is the most perfect poet of the lute." - Gramophone, London

Smith was born in New York in 1946 and graduated from Harvard with honors in 1972. The following year, the artist moved to Europe and continued his studies with Emilio Pujol in Catalonia and with Eugon Dombois in Switzerland. In the years that followed, he participated in numerous projects including early music chamber ensembles such as Hesperion XX. From the mid-1980s onwards, the artist focused almost entirely on developing his solo repertoire and won major awards for his recordings with early string instruments for Astrée. In these recordings, Smith featured the fiddle and baroque guitar in Spanish music, as well as French lute music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods, alongside works from 17th-century Italian and German high baroque music. His 2000 album containing arrangements for lute of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin was praised by critics and music journals worldwide. The prestigious British music magazine Gramophone described Smith's recording as "the finest interpretation of these works ever made on any instrument." He won the Diapason d'Or award with an album containing lute arrangements of Renaissance music recently published by Pierre Attaingnart. Le Monde rated the album "perfect." The artist's John Dowland album, released in early 2005, brought him the Diapason d'Or award once again. The artist will present a selection of lute works from the Elizabethan period at this concert.