Pieter van der Staak (Ensemble) *

Biography

Pieter van der Staak (1930 – 2007) started playing guitar during the second world war as an autodidact. Shortly after the war he left for Paris and played as a guitarist in bands. He auditioned with Andrès Segovia in Italy and was admitted to his courses at the Academia Musicale in Siena. There he received lessons from Alirio Diaz and Emilio Pujol as well. Later he completed his music education at the Maastricht Conservatory.

After his graduation he became the very first subject teacher of guitar at the Conservatory in Zwolle. There he founded the Zwolle Guitar Weeks in 1968, a unique concept in the sixties to the eighties.

He was a celebrated guitarist, guitar teacher and composer. He wrote a lot of chamber music for all kinds of instrumental combinations, including the guitar. He has a repertoire of 269 registered works. In particular the guitar ensembles were released at a time that not much had been written for them in the Netherlands. I mainly know Van der Staak from solo work, although a few of his pieces have also appeared in ensemble workshops.

Music

This piece was the subject of an ensemble workshop in Kulturhaus NIHZ in Nordhorn. Read the Guitarity about that for the story about a piece of faded glory.

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