Faculty member Ray Chester, here with master’s degree candidate Artem Vovk, is a living link to the revival of teaching classical guitar over the last five decades. Photo by Chris Hartlove

In the world of popular music, the guitar is ubiquitous. Amplified. The stuff of video games like Guitar Hero. But dive back into the history of the classical guitar and you'll find the tale of an instrument that grew slowly into its present form. (It only obtained its sixth string in the late 18th century.) An instrument that fell into disfavor in the Romantic and early modern era because it wasn't loud enough.

"The guitar was never dead," says Ray Chester, a faculty member in Peabody's Guitar Department. "But it was very much in the background."

As a student of the legendary Aaron Shearer, who founded Peabody's Guitar Department, Chester is a living link to the revival of the teaching of classical guitar over the last five decades. And along with renowned performer Manuel Barrueco and Department Chairman Julian Gray, Chester has trained the Peabody teachers and players who have helped spur a worldwide renaissance in the guitar's classical fortunes.

It's a legacy that isn't lost on the latest generation of Peabody students of classical guitar. Zane Forshee (MM ’01, GPD ’03, Guitar), current doctoral student and Conservatory and Preparatory faculty member, said that his desire to study at Peabody was cemented on a visit to the Conservatory.

"I went into the cafeteria and looked at who was there," Forshee recalls. "My record collection was in the room." "It is absolutely a wonderful place to study the guitar," concurs Meng Su (PC ’09, Guitar), who has joined with fellow Peabody alumna Yameng Wang (MM ’08, Guitar) to form the GRAMMY-nominated Beijing Guitar Duo.

"For someone who wants to focus on classical guitar, [Peabody] is the place to be," says Benjamin Beirs, Peabody alumnus and Preparatory faculty member, seen here performing at the National Guitar Workshop in New Milford, Conn., in 2010.

"It's intense," says Preparatory faculty member Benjamin Beirs (BM ’06, GPD ’09, Guitar; MM ’07, Guitar Pedagogy). "It's not for everyone. But for someone who wants to focus on classical guitar, it's the best place to be."

Gray says that the intensity is a key to Peabody's success as a place to learn how to shape music from the play of fingers on six nylon strings.

"Peabody is a place where your professional career begins on the first day of your freshman year," says Gray. "We're one of the very few remaining teaching environments based on the master/apprentice system. We show. Do. Explain. We help students acquire the skills they will need to be professional musicians, and show them how the performance component fits in with a career as a teacher."

Peabody's students also benefit from the magnetic appeal of Manuel Barrueco, whose virtuosic recording and performance career has now spanned 35 years. Not only has Barrueco become one of the most important classical guitarists in the world, but he has also been an ambassador for the instrument in wider worlds—including GRAMMY nominations, and collaborations with Placido Domingo, jazz and rock guitarists Al Di Meola, and Andy Summers of The Police. Barrueco attracts performers and composers at the highest levels who offer master classes open to all Peabody guitar students.

"If you want to be the best player that you can be," says Barrueco, "you're in an environment where you can do it." Peabody can claim a significant role in the revival of classical guitar's fortunes. But that renaissance also has raised expectations for the instrument's future—and what continuing role the Conservatory will play in that renaissance.

The good news for guitarists at Peabody is that the youthful energy of its recent graduates is combining with timely philanthropy to make the Conservatory a continuing center of gravity for the classical guitar's burgeoning future.

Stories in the Halls

Talk to any classical guitarist and you'll find they know their musical history. Perhaps that's because many of them feel that the guitar—and its related precursors such as the lute, so prominent in the Renaissance—has been written out of that story.

"A lot of traditional training and history overlooks the guitar. The lute gets a paragraph," Chester says. "In Spain, and Italy, and with the Elizabethans, [lutenists] were the inventors and creators of the first truly great instrumental music."

As the guitar developed from earlier forms of four- and five-string models to gain its sixth string in the late 18th century, it suddenly fell out of favor with composers who wrote for instruments with greater volume. The guitar languished as a minor instrument for more than a century until the singular and world-acclaimed genius of Andres Segovia revived the instrument's fortunes. Audiences were enraptured by his artistry, but the great Spanish guitarist also inspired composers to write for it—and spurred a new generation of students to take up the instrument.

But a number of obstacles greeted students seduced by Segovia. First, what to play? The repertoire for the classical guitar was thin, and much of it proved too difficult for amateurs.

"Repertoire is what really makes a classical instrument," observes David Starobin (BM ’73, Guitar), classical guitarist, president of Bridge Records, and recipient of Peabody Conservatory's Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1999. "The guitar postdates the other major solo instruments by 150 years or more."

More discouraging still was the undisciplined—even chaotic—teaching environment. Guitarists had a reputation in the classical world for technical inaccuracy. And many players suffered injuries in their upper bodies—from shoulders to fingertips—from poor technique.

Enter Aaron Shearer. Shearer's love of the classical guitar compelled him to organize a strict and comprehensive pedagogy for the instrument. Beginning with the publication of his pioneering instruction book, Classical Guitar Technique, Volume One, in 1959, Shearer battled the odds—and the enmity of guitarists, including Segovia—to provide players with practical tools to learn the instrument.

Aaron Shearer, legendary for his bluntness and strict pedagogical methods, is pictured here with students, ca. 1970. Shearer launched the formal study of guitar at Peabody in 1965. Photo: Peabody Archives.

Shearer was teaching classical guitar at Catholic University when the Peabody Conservatory undertook to start a department of its own in 1965. Gray argues that the decision to bring the guitar into the Conservatory was a great leap forward. "It's an atmosphere that's clearly organized. It's a tradition of organized training and standards."

A legend of sorts centering on Shearer's bluntness about the state of classical guitar has grown around the tale of his hiring. "Shearer told Peter Kent, who was director at the time, that [guitarists] had missed 100 years," says Chester. "That they were way behind. And that they weren't ready for the conservatory level."

But Kent valued Shearer's candor, and hired him. Shearer's drive to perfect standards of playing and teaching was a perfect fit for a conservatory. "Aaron knew exactly what he had to do to have the instrument taken seriously by the school," Starobin says. "He was a thought provoker. I liked that about him. And he was analytical. Almost to a fault."

Shearer also brought his relentless refinement of his own methods directly into the classroom. Chester recalls coming to audition for Shearer in 1968 after having spent a few weeks applying Shearer's methods to his own technique. "I sat down to play, and he told me that my position was wrong," he recalls. "I told him: 'I used your book to change to this position six weeks ago.' He said: 'The book's wrong.'"

Barrueco also studied with Shearer, and the master player describes the relationship as a collision between his youthful will and high spirits and his teacher's steely perfectionism. "He came up with unbelievable things for the guitar," Barrueco says. "But some of them were things that I didn't believe in. It is like he wanted a 10, and I would go to seven. But Shearer would only see the three that were missing."

Barrueco also observes that Peabody is an inextricable part of his own personal narrative as a musician. "I love the place," he says. "I know stories about every corner of the building."

Conflicts didn't prevent Shearer's program from being a cornerstone in the revival of classical guitar. "The program started special in that the right person started the program," Chester says. "It's come a long way since then, and there are things we do differently today. But it was a great beginning."

Studio to Stage and Seminar

That beginning has been built upon greatly since Shearer's departure in 1981. Chester took over as chairman from Shearer, and then in 2007, Julian Gray—who studied with Chester—became the chair of the program.

"I knew Julian was going to be a great one" from his earliest days as a student, says Chester. Gray has proved him right with a career that has married elegant performance, including acclaimed recordings as a duo with Ronald Pearl (MM ’85, Guitar), with diligent work integrating guitar into the broader classical world, including chamber music and other ensemble playing.

Gray describes the history of the department as "an elegant lineage. There is continuity, as each of us has developed our own voice in our own individual way. The common denominator is that we all see guitar playing as something that should be analyzed."

That continuity and excellence in teaching are a magnet for today's students.

"What attracts most people to Peabody is the faculty," says senior Brian Barone, an undergraduate in the program who studies with Gray. "Most students would say they are three of the best teachers on the planet. An enormous percentage of the major soloists in the world have studied here for a while. Anyone who's paying attention at all is aware of Peabody and its influence."

That teaching is on display one November afternoon in Ray Chester's graduate seminar, held in a dimly lit classroom in the basement of Leakin Hall.

Chester sits in the back row, hand on his chin, listening intently as a male student plays short pieces by Silvius Leopold Weiss and Johann Sebastian Bach. Chester scribbles on a score at times, but his first question after the performance is about how the student felt about his effort.

When the young player complains of having sweaty hands, Chester interrupts him cheerily. "That's kind of irrelevant, isn't it? Sorry I cut you off, but I know you know better."

Warm compliments for the student's accuracy and musicality are paired with encouragement to push himself "further out on a limb of intensity." Then Chester leads the student repeatedly through key passages, prodding him to attain more brightness and panache in the piece.

Keeping a piece fresh after wrestling with it thousands of times is key. "You know where Bach's going," Chester quips, "but you have to feel the mystery in that piece."

Accuracy, fidelity, and feeling are stressed by all three of Peabody's teachers.

"You're grounded in four categories," says Gray. "Technique, interpretation, practice strategies, and performance."

Perfecting the art of performance is a key element in Barrueco's teaching. As one of the great performers of the contemporary guitar, he attracts talented students to his studio and helps players across the department hone their skills in master classes.

"You can't have a great program without a great performer," says Chester.

Barrueco's approach seems simple. "You want to make the best sound possible," he says. Getting there is a more complicated task, he continues, requiring a delicate alchemy of consistency, intelligence, and inspiration.

"What we're really doing is helping students bring feeling from inside themselves," says Manuel Barrueco. Photo: Arek Berbecki.

"We can help students with mechanics," Barrueco observes. "We help them understand different styles. But what we're really doing is helping students bring feeling from inside themselves." Yet that feeling and passion must always be tempered with what Barrueco calls "honesty" to the intentions of the composer. "Every composer is a different world," he says. "When you stop imposing your own ideas, your playing becomes honest. There are no fake feelings."

Barrueco's students rave about his passionate but personal style. "Basically, he turned me from a player into a musician," says Meng Su. "He has influenced the way I see the guitar and the way I see music. The secret is to always sing, which is very easy to say, and very hard to accomplish, especially on a pluck instrument such as the guitar."

Her partner in the Beijing Guitar Duo (and fellow GPD candidate), Yameng Wang, says Barrueco "always asks for more dynamic [playing], and more musical interpretation. He helped me to open my feelings and apply them to the music itself."

Kosovar guitarist Petrit Çeku, a GPD candidate, also studies with Barrueco. He observes that his teacher "has a huge power of suggestion, with inspiring arguments, but he studies every student's personality, improving their playing without trying to change them."

Students of Julian Gray describe him as a mentor as much as a teacher, simultaneously guiding them on a career path as he teaches them to be musicians. Gray encourages his students to play in ensembles and research deeply the history of music in efforts to expand the repertoire for guitar. Gray proudly reports that his student Zane Forshee spent a year in Spain on a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship studying manuscripts and scores (some unpublished) by 20th-century composer for the guitar Vicente Ascencio.

"I want students to have the skills they will need to be a professional musician," Gray remarks. "But I also want to give them a large range of experiences... and to show them how the performance component fits in with a career as a teacher."

Peabody's guitar department is unique for its master/apprentice system, notes Julian Gray (right), pictured here in 2008 with student Greg Koenig. Photo: Will Kirk, homewoodphoto.jhu.edu.

Ben Beirs is also one of Gray's students. He says that his teacher "has a real gift in terms of working with young people... He is a real communicator, with a gift for language and for metaphors."

Current GPD candidate Mark Edwards (MM ’09, Guitar) says that what attracted him to studying with Gray was his teacher's ability to help with larger questions that require a mentor's touch. "Because of the complex nature of performing and interpretation," he says, "I knew that I needed a teacher who could try and explore questions that don't have a clear answer, like the most popular: 'Even though I practice well and prepare, why do I still get nervous when I perform?'"

Alumnus Mark Edwards, performing at Peabody's Leadership Luncheon in 2010, values the mentorship of Julian Gray: "I knew that I needed a teacher who could try and explore questions that don't have a clear answer." Photo: Chris Hartlove.

As essential as the faculty are to a Peabody education, the teachers themselves argue that Peabody encourages students to teach each other as well.

"If you're in an environment where you have all these students who are talented, I personally feel that you can learn as much in the cafeteria as you do from your teachers," says Barrueco. "It's a great environment to exchange ideas."

Barrueco's hunch is confirmed by Beirs. "You learn as much from your peers as you do from your teachers," he says. "Hanging out in the hall, listening to them play. And it prevents students from getting lax. If everyone around you is going to practice, it makes you think that you should be practicing."

A Fret-Full Future?

Classical guitar's growth has been explosive, but from his perch gazing over the larger classical music world at Bridge Records, David Starobin sees challenges for the instrument as well.

Alumnus David Starobin is president of Bridge Records.

Classical guitar "is still struggling to find a place in the midst of the classical world," says Starobin. "It's a young instrument, and it's not had the benefit of the important wisdom and knowledge that the broader classical world brings to instruments."

Peabody's faculty and students understand that challenge. Their response is to strive for excellence in performance, teaching, and direct outreach to broader audiences that's rooted in their Peabody experience.

One only need register the sparkle of delighted pride in Barrueco's eyes as he hands you a copy of the Beijing Guitar Duo's compact disc Maracaí­pe to see his own hope for the instrument's future in the hands of his students.

"I'd put my reputation on the line and say that this is the best guitar duo in the world," Barrueco enthuses. And delighted as he is that the recording was nominated for a 2010 Latin GRAMMY, he's equally proud that its centerpiece composition grew out of a master class he arranged with renowned composer and guitarist Sergio Assad.

Peabody's Yameng Wang and Meng Su, the Beijing Guitar Duo, were nominated for a Latin GRAMMY in 2010 for their recording Maracaípe. Here they perform at the 2008 Peabody 150th Anniversary Gala. Photo: Will Kirk, homewoodphoto.jhu.edu.

"One project that I have had with [Meng and Yameng]—and with my whole studio—is to work on the music of Assad," Barrueco says. "Then I brought him in for a master class. It was a great thing for the students to be working firsthand with a composer, teaching them things that I couldn't teach them.... He could tell them what he meant by a certain notation, for instance."

Barrueco says that Assad was especially impressed by Su and Wang: "He was so excited that he wrote a duo for them!"

That piece was Maracaípe, the title song of the Beijing Guitar Duo's first collection. And along with the Latin GRAMMY, the Beijing Guitar Duo was also the first recipient of a new award at Peabody created by and named for Solomon H. Snyder, Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Snyder, who founded the department of neuroscience at Hopkins, was an accomplished classical guitarist as a teenager. He eschewed a potential career as a performer in favor of his highly acclaimed research.

"I'm interested in promoting the careers of young guitarists," says Snyder. "And what do most young Peabody graduates need? They need exposure."

The exposure provided by the Solomon H. Snyder Prize is the best available: a Carnegie Hall debut. After meeting and listening to the Beijing Guitar Duo and the award's second debut winner, Lukasz Kuropacsewski, Snyder says, "As far as I'm concerned, at this young age, they've got it. It gives me hope for the future."

"He is an amazing ally," Barrueco says of Snyder. "He loves the guitar, and he wants to help talented students."

Recent Peabody graduates aren't just excelling in performance, though Benjamin Beirs and Zane Forshee have both embarked on careers that merge performance and teaching. Beirs has released two records�a solo record called Distant Places and Different Times and a release as a member of Duo Transatlantique called Le Gris et Le Vert. Forshee recently released Initial, his first solo record.

But true to Julian Gray's desire to expand the guitar's outreach, this pair of his students also embarked on an ambitious festival project at Peabody Preparatory called Fret Festival. The daylong event—master classes, performances, workshops, and a "guitar ensemble jam" with Beirs and Forshee—aims to bring the classical guitar to younger audiences, which may contain one or two of the next great classical guitarists.

Beirs says that the goal was to create "something for kids to introduce them to the classical guitar. A festival that's fun and open and not too stuffy."

Last year's festival featured pioneering guitarist and composer Ben Verdery, whose work stretches classical guitar into popular forms. Forshee said the choice was intentional: "We wanted to do something that was unconventional, and throw the classical guitar program open to the community."

Beirs and Forshee plan to expand the festival into the wider Peabody community next year, and they too have had help from timely philanthropy. Turner B. Smith, former president of the South Charles Investment Corporation and a former member of the Conservatory's advisory board, was the primary donor for the Fret Festival. Smith's love of classical guitar had led him to try and learn the instrument (Forshee is his teacher), and he bubbles over with enthusiasm for Beirs and Forshee as musicians and organizers.

Beirs and Forshee, he says, "are very committed, sensible guys who know how to put things together."

Knowing history is key to understanding Peabody's importance in the history of classical guitar. But the accolades and prizes and festivals won by recent graduates signify that the Conservatory is helping to keep the classical guitar thriving and awake to a potential future of greatness.

"I don't think the guitar is in danger of falling asleep again," says Chester.