Finnissy and the Guitar (Album) Sam Cave, Diego Castro Magaš, Mēla Guitar Quartet and Vickers Bovey Guitar Duo

• Michael Finnissy (b. 1946): Two Cut-Ups of Three Fantasias by Alonso Mudarra:
• 1 Finnissy: Two Cut-Ups of Three Fantasias by Alonso Mudarra: I. — 04:50
• 2 Finnissy: Two Cut-Ups of Three Fantasias by Alonso Mudarra: II. — 03:05
• Song 17:
• 3 Finnissy: Song 17 05:46
• Albion on the Road to Hell:
• 4 Finnissy: Albion on the Road to Hell 15:45
• Nasiye:
• 5 Finnissy: Nasiye 11:37
• Felix namque:
• 6 Finnissy: Felix namque 03:17
• Normal Deviates:
• 7 Finnissy: Normal Deviates 08:22
• Outcast:
• 8 Finnissy: Outcast 18:39
• Total Runtime 01:11:21

Info for Finnissy and the Guitar (Album)

Michael Finnissy’s output for the guitar spans almost 60 years of his career and represents an enormous contribution to the repertoire of the instrument from one of Britain’s most significant composers. Published a few days before Finnissy’s 80th birthday, this bold and ambitious album celebrates this day by bringing together all of his works for solo guitar and guitar ensemble for the first time in performances by Finnissy’s collaborators and led by new music virtuoso and tireless guitar explorer Sam Cave.

Sam Cave, classical guitar
Mēla Guitar Quartet
Diego Castro Magaš, classical guitar
Vickers Bovey Guitar Duo

Recorded at the Church of the Ascension, Plumstead, London, UK
Recorded, edited and mastered by John Croft (Chiaro Audio)
Produced by Sam Cave, John Croft, Michael Finnissy and Johan Lofving (Outcast)

Sam Cave
English guitarist and composer Sam Cave is one of the guitar’s leading exponents of new music. ​

Sam’s performances have taken him to some of the most exciting venues and festivals in the UK and abroad with appearances at St John’s Smith Square, City Showcase Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Nonclassical, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, LSO St. Luke’s, AVGARDE concert series in Norway, the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre, Kings Place, Wigmore Hall, November Music in the Netherlands, Giga-Hertz Festival in Karlsruhe Germany, and the Tianjin May Festival in Tianjin, China. Sam has been a Park Lane Group Young Artist and has recorded for both ‘Another Timbre’ and ‘Metier’ record labels. His playing has been broadcast on both ‘Late Junction’ and multiple times on ‘The New Music Show’ on BBC Radio 3. Sam is a member of the leading new music groups Octandre Ensemble and Apartment House and regularly performs with many other groups at the forefront of new music including Riot Ensemble and Explore Ensemble. ​

Sam studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Gary Ryan and Chris Stell with financial assistance from The Countess of Munster Musical Trust. He has also studied with Vincent Lindsey-Clark, Michael Zev Gordon, Michael Finnissy, Gilbert Biberian and Craig Ogden and graduated from the University of Southampton with first class honours and the Edward Wood memorial prize in music. In 2020 Sam completed a PhD in composition at Brunel University, London under the supervision of Christopher Fox and John Croft. ​

As a composer Sam’s work has been performed in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Australia and the USA by some of the most exciting young ensembles and soloists working today. He was an LSO Soundhub Associate Composer for 2017-22 and his music is published by Babelscores. ​

Now also an educator in much demand, Sam is currently a tutor at Brunel University, London, he has been a guest lecturer in composition for guitar at Coventry University and a lecturer in composition and orchestration at Kingston University. ​

Sam plays on a ‘super-concert guitar’ by Dutch luthier Jeroen Hilhorst.

“...a very musical performer...it was Cave’s strong connection with the music which made the work accessible...the composer George Holloway describes Cave as the composer’s dream performer. I absolutely agree...” — Therese Saba, Classical Guitar Magazine (UK)

Diego Castro Magaš
was born in Santiago de Chile, in 1978.

He started music lessons (guitar performance and music theory) under the guidance of Chilean composer Fernando Carrasco in 1992. Later, he studied guitar performance at Catholic University of Chile with maestro Oscar Ohlsen (from 1993, obtaining the Diploma in Guitar performance with summa cum laude in 2000) and in University Ramon Llull with Ricardo Gallén and Fernando Rodríguez (MA in Guitar performance 2005).

He has also attended masterclasses from other guitarists such as Eduardo Fernández, Pablo Márquez and Magnus Andersson as well as from lutenist Hopkinson Smith. Also, he studied contemporary electric-guitar under Daryl Buckley.

Between 1998 and 2005, Diego was prize-winner in several classical guitar competitions such as ‘Liliana Perez Corey Guitar Contest’ in Chile, ‘Maestro Abel Carlevaro Guitar Competition’ in Uruguay, ‘Manuel Ponce Gutar Competition’ in Mexico, ‘Stotsenberg Classical Gutar Competition’ in USA and ‘Miquel Llobet Guitar Competition’ in Spain.

Since 2006, he has been focused mainly in contemporary music repertoire, introducing to Chilean audiences both solo and chamber music major guitar works by F. Donatoni, L. Francesconi, A. Clementi, G. Manca, H. Lachenmann, B. Ferneyhough, C. Dench and M. Finnissy among others. Recently, he has also collaborated with Brian Ferneyhough, James Dillon, Michael Finnissy, Aaron Cassidy, Bryn Harrison, Eric Egan and Clemens Gadenstätter in performances of their solo guitar pieces, respectively.

He has performed in main contemporary and chamber music festivals in Chile, as well as in Festival Atempo in Venezuela, 24th Contemporary Music Festival in Cuba, Festival Ars Nova in Ravensburg, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klang Festival in Durham, Tacit or Loud Festival for Artistic Research in Malmö and The Dark Precursor: Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research in Ghent among many others.

In recent years, Diego has given research seminars, lectures and workshops on contemporary performance at Nunc Conference in Northwestern University, Lund University, Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Leeds University, Brunel University London, Durham University and University of York. Also, he has published articles on CeReNeM Journal, TEMPO (Cambridge University press) and Divergence Press (University of Huddersfield).

His first solo CD was released in 2009, featuring the first published recording of Ferneyhough’s guitar duo “No Time (at all)” along side brilliant Chilean guitarist José Antonio Escobar. In 2015, Diego released the CD ‘Shrouded Mirrors’ for Huddersfield Contemporary Records, distributed by NMC Recordings. The CD includes the recording premieres of solo guitar pieces by Michael Finnissy, Bryn Harrison, Matthew Sergeant and Wieland Hoban alongside pieces by Brian Ferneyhough and James Dillon.

Diego obtained his PhD in Contemporary Performance at University of Huddersfield under the supervision of Philip Thomas in 2016, in recognition of his thesis ‘Body, Mimesis and Image: a Gesture-based Approach to Interpretation in Contemporary Guitar Performing Practice’.

Currently, Diego is lecturer in Guitar Performance and Chamber Music at Catholic University of Chile.

Mēla Guitar Quartet
Winners of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Ensemble Competition 2023, the Mela guitar quartet are known for their imaginative, engaging programming, ingenious arrangements and commissioning celebrated original works.

Hailed for their “collective technical brilliance and preternatural ensemble making” (Gramophone), the quartet have released four albums: a collection of original arrangements, Overtures & Dances, recorded with spatial audio specialist label TRPTK; the complete guitar quartets of composer/author Anthony Burgess; the complete guitar chamber works of Stephen Dodgson, both with Naxos; the self-released album Pluck, Strum, and Hammer!.

Notable performances have included the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, Kings Place Hall One, St. James’ Church Piccadilly, Barbican Centre’s Milton Court, St. George’s Bristol, Westminster Abbey, Soest Germany, and, of course, Jimi Hendrix’s bedroom. In Spring 2025, the quartet completed an eight-week tour of America and Canada as part of their GFA winners prize, including a USA premiere performance of Anthony Burgess' Concerto Grosso for four guitars and orchestra with Stanford Philharmonic at the Bing Concert Hall, California. In 2019 the quartet embarked on an eight concert tour of China, including Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Changsha concert hall and Tianjin Grand Theatre.

The quartet formed in 2015 as graduates of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music. They became International Guitar Foundation Young Artists 2015/16, then Park Lane Group young artists 2018/19 and Royal Over-Seas League chamber music finalists 2019. The members Michael Butten and Zahrah Hutton joined in 2023.

The quartet are enthusiastically adding to the guitar quartet repertoire through their adventurous arrangements of much loved orchestral works and their commissions of new music. Laura Snowden, My Clock is Broken! (2019), The Emperor’s New Clothes (2023), Michael Finnissy, Albion on the Road to Hell (2019), Stephen Goss, Venezuela (2019) are all pieces commissioned and premiered by the quartet.​​

Vickers Bovey Guitar Duo
have been described as performers ‘with truly uncanny unanimity’ (Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph) and ‘with astounding exquisiteness’ (Paul Driver, Sunday Times). Julian and Dan first met studying at Birmingham Conservatoire where they both received First Class Honours and the Principal’s Prize, continuing their studies with a joint Masters at the Royal Academy of Music, London, graduating with Distinction and the Performance Diploma in July 2016.

Winners of multiple awards, the duo have been selected for the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Maisie Lewis Prize, the Tillett Trust Young Artist Platform, which saw them make their Wigmore Hall debut in February 2017, the 2017 Park Lane Group concert series at St John’s Smith Square and the Concordia Foundation Young Artist Scheme. In 2016 they won the Royal Academy of Music’s Club Prize, the most prestigious competition at the Academy and are prize winners at the 2017 Guitar Foundation of America’s International Ensemble Competition in Los Angeles and the 2018 International Festival de Guitarra Braga Ensemble Competition in Portugal.

The duo have been featured on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Late Junction and are past recipients of the IGF Young Artist Platform, the Countess of Munster and Help Musicians UK Awards and have performed extensively internationally and around the UK including at Wigmore Hall, St. James’ Piccadilly, St. John’s Smith Square, Courtauld Gallery, Kings Place (London Guitar Festival), The Sage (North-East Guitar Festival), The Lake District Summer Music Festival and Kings Lynn Festival.

United by a love of new and contemporary music, the duo have commissioned and premiered numerous works, including Michael Finnissy’s Normal Deviates, Joe Cutler’s Everyday Music and Mario Ferraro’s On That Old Oak by the Roadside. The duo also have a long term collaboration with Ryan Probert, whose transfixing large scale works Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Eight Views of the Four Seasons and The Fields Where Silence Has Lease (BBC commission) have been performed over thirty times, in concert halls, libraries, factories and schools. The complete set of Ryan’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji formed the duo’s debut CD, released in April 2016.

Booklet for Finnissy and the Guitar (Album)