John Duate's Biography

John Duarte was born on October the 2nd 1919 in Sheffield. He was one hundred percent English despite the name. His father was Scottish and his mother English. He received his musical education at Manchester Central High School(1931-1935) and Manchester University Faculty of Technology (1936-1940). He worked as a professional chemist until 1969, then abandoned chemistry in favor of full-time music. The only formal musical education he received was lessons with Terence Usher (1934-1936) in jazz-guitar playing; the rest was by self-instruction. He also studied double bass and ttrumpet for a while and worked professionally as a jazz musician until 1953. He has been great friends with Andres Segovia for 39 years and with Ida Presti who, sadly, died at the age of 42.
He composed over 130 works for the guitar and lute (many commissioned with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain and other sources, official and private, both domestic and overseas. Most have been published and 57 have been commercially recorded by 58 artists and/or ensembles in 24 countries, some several times. Author of many arrangements (several also recorded) and didactic works.

Duarte also wrote countless articles. He was a regular contributor to Soundboard, interviewer and reviewer of books, music, concerts and recordings of many kinds (specializing in Baroque music) with Gramophone, Music Teacher and Classical Guitar, and author of numerous concert-program notes and about 250 liner notes for records of various kinds, including those for the complete reissue of Julian Bream's recordings for RCA (28 compact discs).

He received a Grammy Award for his annotation to the reissue of Segovia's recordings of 1927-1939. In the past, has contributed regularly to Music in Education, Guitar Review, Guitar International, Music & Musicians, Records and Recording, and Performance. Contributor to the revised edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

As a teacher he has prepared many international students for successful careers, and he was Director of the Cannington International Guitar Summer School and Festival (1974-93), Course Director of the Bath International Guitar Festival (1994-95) and has also taught at the Oatridge International Guitar Summer School and Festival (near Edinburgh). Has worked as a teacher, lecturer and adjudicator in 29 countries outside the United Kingdom.

His 60th and 70th birthdays were celebrated with concerts of his music in the Wigmore Hall (London), played by artists from Britain, the USA, Czechoslovakia, Venezuela, Germany and Croatia. His 80th birthday was marked by a similar concert in the Bolivar Hall (London) with artists from England, Scotland, Brazil, Greece and Italy. In 1990 he received a Silver Medal from the Czech Ambassador in London, for his "services to Anglo-Czech and Slovak cultural relations". At the Convention of the Guitar Foundation of America in October 1999 he received an Award for Lifetime Achievement.

John W. Duarte died on December 23, 2004, suffering from cancer.