International premiere for Department of Music and Media Professor
Professor Stephen Goss’ international presence grew even further last month as he attended the premiere of ‘Wynwood Walls’, his new concerto for guitar and orchestra.
The concerto was performed at the Miami International GuitART Festival at Florida International University, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (USA), and was followed by keynote lectures in festivals at Columbus State University (Georgia) and the University of Memphis (Tennessee), exploring the topic of biopsychosocial composition.
As part of his position as head of the International Guitar Research Centre at the University of Surrey, Steve has also recently secured grant success with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to commission ‘Landscape and Memory’, a new concerto for two guitars and strings. The grant also including funding for performances and a commercial recording.
Steve is currently travelling in Yerevan, working with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra on his orchestral music for a showcase concert at the Aram Khachaturian Hall.
Looking forward, Steve will be composer in residence at two festivals in Italy in May; the Paganini Guitar Festival in Parma, and the Las Seis Cuerdas festival in Lucca. In June, he returns to the US for the Guitar Foundation of America Convention and the New York Guitar Symposium.
In another great accolade already this year, The Folkwang Universitat der Kunste in Germany has just launched an annual guitar award named after Stephen: ‘Gitarrenpreis Stephen Goss’. Steve was there for the first edition of the competition back in February.
The IGRC offers a number of PhDs through the University of Surrey, with 11 doctoral graduates, and 17 current researchers. Learn more about our PhD opportunities in the Department here.
