{"id":6461,"date":"2017-03-23T09:21:40","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T16:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=6461"},"modified":"2018-08-17T15:58:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T22:58:14","slug":"music-to-play-divertissement-no-3-for-guitar-by-helen-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/music-to-play-divertissement-no-3-for-guitar-by-helen-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"Music to Play: \u2018Divertissement No. 3 for Guitar\u2019 by Helen Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Spring 2017 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em><\/h6>\n

Click here to download a PDF of “Divertissement No. 3 for Guitar”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

We asked British musician Helen Walker to fill us in a bit on this piece and her career.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote Five Divertissements for Guitar <\/i>at the invitation of Paul Fowles of the Manchester Guitar Circle. His encouragement and advice, alongside that of classical guitarist Jon Gjylaci, who premiered the work at the Bolton School Arts Centre, Bolton, England, on June 17, 2015, led me to gratefully dedicate it them.<\/p>\n

The work was my introduction to composing for solo classical guitar and was primarily inspired by my love of the instrument. However, not having actually owned a classical guitar for 40-plus years, I purchased a neglected secondhand, 3\/4\u2013sized instrument that I restored and used to write the pieces on when I came to compose the Divertissements<\/i>. The guitar has a lovely tone and it was ideal for me to refer to during the process. It cost $10, then I renovated it and it\u2019s now it\u2019s probably worth $11! <\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted the pieces, although miniature, to be complete journeys in their own right, as well as parts of the whole. They were written to be accessible to students of the guitar and to be an enjoyable experience for the player as much as for the audience.<\/p>\n

After the pieces were complete, I asked Paul Fowles and Jon Gjylaci to run their eyes over them for anything that may be unplayable, and then Jon added his fingerings during the rehearsal period leading up to the premiere. I originally met Jon through my husband Mike, who sometimes plays percussion with him in concert. Mike also plays on a couple of tracks\u2014Asturias<\/i> and Danza Brasilera<\/i>\u2014on Jon\u2019s latest CD release, Edges of Thought<\/i>. Jon and Mike opened for Xuefei Yang at the Manchester Guitar Circle\u2019s 70th anniversary concert.<\/p>\n

Though they are the first pieces that I\u2019ve written for classical guitar, I\u2019ve been a composer and songwriter for over 30 years. I\u2019ve composed, across genres, for concert, film, television, record releases, ballet, and the stage. I had a few guitar lessons when I was very young, but the instruments I play professionally are piano, organ, and other keyboards. In the songs I write and record with my husband Mike, as the Nearlys, I play electric guitar and bass on some of the tracks, but I wouldn\u2019t dare describe myself as a guitarist\u2014I dabble!<\/p>\n

Still, I hope to write more pieces for classical guitar in the near future\u2014maybe longer works\u2014and also collaborate with Jon again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Click here to watch Gjylaci perform all 5\u00a0<\/i>Divertissements.\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Music for the other Divertissements can be purchased through helenwalker.musicaneo.com<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guidelines for submitting pieces for \u201cMusic to Play\u201d can be found here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Spring 2017 issue of Classical Guitar Click here to download a PDF of “Divertissement No. 3 for Guitar” We asked British musician Helen Walker to fill us in a bit on this piece and her career. I wrote Five Divertissements for Guitar at the invitation of Paul Fowles of the Manchester Guitar Circle. His encouragement and advice, alongside that of classical guitarist Jon Gjylaci, who premiered the work at the Bolton School Arts Centre, Bolton, England, on June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-6461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stories","tag-musictoplay","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Helen-Walker-and-Jon-Gylaci.jpg?fit=2292%2C1528&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}