MICHAEL LEWIN
MICHAEL LEWIN studied with Hector Quine at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and later in Spain with José Tomás. As guitarist and lutenist he has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Scottish Opera, English National Opera, La Piccola Scala (Milan) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and has broadcast on major networks in the UK and abroad. In addition to solo concerts, he has played with leading chamber groups and orchestras, appearing at festivals, such as Bath, Bergen, Edinburgh, Flanders, Göttingen and Venice, as well as at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. He has also made a number of recordings, notably with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under their conductor, Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
Since becoming a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1977, he has devoted an increasing amount of time to educational work. In 1987 he was appointed Head of Guitar Studies by the RAM, from which department a stream of outstanding musicians have emerged, including Mark Ashford, Antigoni Goni, Miloš Karadaglić, Elizabeth Kenny, Gary Ryan, Fabio Zanon, Xuefei Yang and the Eden/Stell and Katona Duos, as well as the composer Stephen Goss and the Tetra and Vida Quartets. In recent years international prize-winners, such as Rafael Aguirre, Srdjan Bulat, Mircea Gogoncea, Andrey Lebedev, Giacomo Susani and Emmanuel Sowicz have come to the RAM to complete their advanced studies with him. One of the key features of the Academy’s guitar course, led by Michael Lewin, has been its close involvement in special events attended by such distinguished composers as Malcolm Arnold, Richard Rodney Bennett, Stephen Dodgson, Franco Donatoni, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hans Werner Henze, Nicholas Maw, Peter Maxwell Davies, and its prestigious series of masterclasses and workshops given by many of the world’s most famous guitar virtuosi, among whom may be listed Julian Bream, John Williams, David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, Edoardo Catemario, Oscar Ghiglia, Tilman Hoppstock, David Starobin, the Assad Duo and the Los Angeles Quartet.
A regular adjudicator at national and international competitions, he has examined for all the main UK conservatoires. In 1990 he co-founded the European Guitar Teachers’ Association (UK) and was its chairman from 1999-2001, meanwhile also being vice-president of the international EGTA from 1996-2006. In 2007 he was invited to make a return visit to teach at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and has given masterclasses at the Sibelius Academy (2008), the Paris Conservatoire CNSMDP (2009), the ‘Suonarte’ summer course in Scandiano, Italy (2008/2009), the Koblenz International Guitar Festival (2010), the Campos do Jordão International Music Festival in Brazil (2011), the University of Bologna (2012) and Torrita di Siena (2013-2019).
2019 saw the inauguration of his major project: the New Elizabethan Award (www.wcom.org.uk/new-elizabethan-award) for the performance on lute and guitar, solo or in ensemble, of music by composers from the two Elizabethan ages. While uniquely British in concept, the New Elizabethan Award is open to international applicants. It is administered by the Worshipful Company of Musicians, one of the City of London’s historic guilds. Among its career-enhancing opportunities the New Elizabethan Award offers a showcase at London’s famous Wigmore Hall and a series of concerts at historic locations.
Michael Lewin is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Teacher of the University of London, Chairman of the Ivor Mairants Guitar Award panel, a trustee of the Julian Bream Trust, PastMaster of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and a Freeman of the City of London.