Echoes of the Guitar: Recording and Performance Histories
Start date
16 September 2026End date
16 September 2026Project website
ViewOverview
Echoes of the Guitar is a pilot research project exploring the relationship between the guitar and the phonograph, the earliest commercially successful sound recording technology. Bringing together recording specialists, musicologists, and performer-researchers from the Guitar Department at the Royal Academy of Music, the Early Recordings Association, and the International Guitar Research Centre at the University of Surrey, the project investigates how the wax cylinder phonograph captured, shaped, and preserved the sound of the guitar in its earliest recorded history. At the heart of the project is the creation of new guitar recordings on wax cylinders using historic recording techniques and Edison phonographs. These recordings will offer practical insights into the possibilities and limitations of early sound recording, opening new perspectives on guitar performance, listening, and musical heritage.
Programme
Introduction
Introduction to the performers and aims of the event, historical recording technologies, and wax-cylinder recording, including the opportunity to hear an original wax cylinder of a mandolin and guitar.
Marco Ramelli
Levino da Conceição: Há Quem Resista?
Enrica Savigni
Miguel Llobet: Cançó del Lladre and El Testament d’Amèlia
Break
Kacper Dworniczak
Frédéric Chopin/Francisco Tárrega: Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4
Louis Moisan
Carcassi: Étude
Chopin/Tárrega: Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4
Marco Ramelli and Enrica Savigni — Duo Experiment
Mendelssohn: Song without Words, Op. 62 No. 1
Panel Commentary and Conclusions
Reflections on the live recording experiments and what they reveal about performance and historical recording technologies.
Team
Dr Inja Stanovic
Surrey Future Senior Fellow, Director of Performance, Early Recordings Association Director
Biography
Dr Inja Stanović is a Croatian pianist and a published author. Inja is a Senior Researcher at the University of Surrey, where she directs the Early Recordings Association, ERA. Her recent publications include co-edited volume Early Sound Recordings: Academic Research and Practice (Routledge, 2023), and a free-source research album Austro-German Revivals: (Re)constructing Acoustic Recordings (University of Huddersfield Press, 2022).
Marco Ramelli
Guitarist, researcher and composer
Biography
TU Dublin Conservatoire lecturer and researcher Marco Ramelli approaches music with curiosity and a strong spirit of research. As a guitarist, his interests range from contemporary music to historically informed performance on period instruments. He explores the relationship between instrument and interpretation, particularly through projects aimed at enhancing tactile sensitivity. He has performed internationally, appearing in prestigious venues both as a soloist and chamber musician.
He has recorded several albums, including the guitar music of Roberto Gerhard and Federico Mompou, as well as transcriptions of Mompou’s piano music, realized in collaboration with James Beneteau. In 2025, he will release the first album in the A Tempo Rubato series with Enrica Savigni, featuring Romantic repertoire as part of a research project on time perception and rhythmic nuance.
His research interests include performance practice, music cognition, and organology, with recent attention to trauma and disability and their impact on creativity. His latest research examines the contribution of blind musicians to the evolution of the guitar. His article A Lost Culture of Touch and Sound, The Contribution of Visually Impaired Musicians to the Evolution of the Spanish Guitar was described as “a revelation” and as “a historical essay that reconsiders an entire field of study.” In 2022, he contributed the essay The Influence of the Spanish Civil War on Roberto Gerhard’s Guitar Music to the recent volume on Roberto Gerhard published by Oxford University Press, exploring the impact of the Spanish Civil War on artistic production.
As a composer, Marco gained international recognition by winning the World Guitar Composition Competition in Serbia. His works are performed worldwide by leading soloists, including Sean Shibe, Samrat Majumder, Andrea Dieci, Lorenzo Micheli, and Sasha Savaloni. Collaboration is central to his artistic path, leading to numerous premieres of works dedicated to him.
Believing in the role of community in musical creativity, he has been involved in the creation of artistic initiatives such as Festival Corde d’Autunno and Residenze Erranti, fostering a young research-oriented guitar community. This same vision drives TouchTheSound, a project exploring historical instruments as a source of knowledge, co-founded with Gabriele Lodi and Enrica Savigni. He also organizes research symposia, including the Dublin Guitar Symposium, and serves on the steering committee of the Festival of Music Performance Research (Dublin) and TU Dublin Research Symposium. In 2018, he was awarded the Chitarra d’Oro for promotion by the Scientific Committee of the International Guitar Conference Michele Pittaluga.
Enrica Savigni
Guitarist and researcher
Biography
Enrica Savigni an Italian multi-instrumentalist with a diverse range of musical experiences, currently focused on the study of instruments and repertoire from the Classical-Romantic period.
Her interest in historical instruments began in 2011, when she participated in the 19th-century guitar masterclass at Milan’s Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado” with Duo Maccari-Pugliese, graduating in 2013. She obtained a Master of Arts in Music Performance from the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels in 2021, studying in the Early Music department with Maestro Xavier Diaz Latorre. Prior to that, she studied classical guitar and clarinet at the Conservatorio “A. Boito” in Parma, graduating in 2010 and 2014, respectively.
Enrica is an active performer, engaged in both solo and chamber music projects. She regularly collaborates in a duo with Laura Savigni (fortepianist), performing the original 19th-century repertoire for guitar and piano on period instruments. Their discography includes several releases: Giuliani-Moscheles-Mertz, Movimento Classical (2019, released by the Italian music magazine Amadeus); Für Beethoven: Music for Fortepiano and Guitar Inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven, MP Editions (2020); Unruhe: New Transcriptions for Guitar and Piano (2024).
As an Artistic Director, she is involved in various initiatives aimed at empowering the guitar community and creating opportunities for young artists to connect and explore their artistry. These include the TouchTheSound Project, a collaboration with Marco Ramelli and Gabriele Lodi that focuses on performance practice, ancient instruments, and historical repertoire, and the Residenze Erranti project, a program of artistic residencies created in partnership with
Giacomo Susani and Marco Ramelli.
She regularly gives masterclasses and participates in conferences, including the Perform_Live Festival in Dublin, the Congresso Guitarristico de Braga (Portugal), the Society for Musicology in Ireland’s Annual Plenary Conference, and the Mikulov Guitar Festival. Enrica is currently a DMus researcher at TU Dublin Conservatoire, a freelance performer, and a guitar tutor at Maynooth University (Ireland).
Louis Moisan
Guitarist, lute and theorbo player
Biography
Louis Moisan is a guitarist, lute and theorbo player, celebrated for his versatility. Active as a soloist, chamber musician, and continuo player, he has performed across Europe, North America, and in many of the UK’s leading concert halls. A committed chamber musician, Louis collaborates widely with singers and instrumentalists, devising imaginative programmes that span centuries of repertoire. He has worked with artists across the spectrum, from violist Lawrence Power to actor Sir Mark Rylance, and regularly performs with renowned ensembles including Opera North and The English Concert.
Alongside his work in historical performance, as a guitarist, he has been praised for his “virtuosity beyond his years”. He is an advocate for new repertoire, premiering works, and commissioning large-scale projects such as Elliot Teo’s guitar concerto. He has performed under conductors including Vimbayi Kaziboni and Barbara Hannigan, and is equally at home on electric guitar, appearing as a concerto soloist with the Manson Ensemble. Louis performs regularly with Musica d’Outrura, and his recording work can be heard on the label Deux-Elles, most recently on their album Still Life. He is currently working on a major recording project with the label dedicated to the chamber music of Robert de Visée.
Moisan studied at the Royal Academy of Music, receiving the Blyth Watson Guitar Prize (twice), winning the Concerto Prize, and being awarded the Regency Award (twice), cementing his place as an exciting new voice in the early and contemporary music scenes.
Kacper Dworniczak
Guitarist
Biography
Born in Poznań, Poland, in 2001, Kacper Dworniczak is an internationally acclaimed classical guitarist whose artistry combines technical brilliance with emotional depth. Since picking up the guitar at the age of six, he has established himself as one of the most exciting young guitarists of his generation, earning recognition for performances that captivate audiences with their sensitivity, imagination, and storytelling.
Kacper has performed on renowned stages across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York. His concert career has taken him to leading festivals and concert halls, while appearances in countries such as Japan, Italy, Croatia, Austria, and Poland have further established his international reputation. He has received more than forty prizes at prestigious national and international guitar competitions, reflecting both his artistic maturity and exceptional musicianship.
A versatile performer, Kacper is equally at home in the classical repertoire and in collaborations that bridge musical genres. He has worked with celebrated Polish singer Andrzej Piaseczny, recording and touring nationally, while continuing to develop innovative recital programmes that bring together classical masterworks, contemporary music, jazz influences, and original arrangements. His debut solo album, JOURNEYS, presents a deeply personal musical narrative inspired by travel, artistic exploration, and the universal power of music to connect people.
Kacper graduated with distinction from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where he studied under renowned guitarists Łukasz Kuropaczewski and Paolo Pegoraro. Throughout his education and career, he has been supported by numerous prestigious scholarships, including Poland's Young Poland programme, recognising both his achievements and his artistic potential.
Whether performing intimate solo recitals or appearing with orchestras, Kacper Dworniczak approaches every concert as an opportunity to tell a story. His performances are defined by authenticity, expressive freedom, and a belief that music is a universal language capable of creating meaningful connections between performer and audience.
Professor Stephen Goss
Professor of Composition and Director of the International Guitar Research Centre
Biography
The compositions of Stephen Goss are utterly captivating – The Independent
One of the most innovative and appealing composers of our time – British Music Society
Despite being inspired by intellectual rigour, the atmosphere is peaceful, even playful – The Times
Stephen Goss’s music has been recorded on over a hundred albums by more than a dozen record labels, including Decca, EMI, Virgin Classics, Naxos, Deutsche Grammophon, and Deux-Elles. His work is widely performed internationally, often at leading venues such as Wigmore Hall, and the Royal Festival Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. His output embraces multiple genres: orchestral and choral works, chamber music, and solo pieces.
Recent work includes several projects with the legendary guitarist John Williams, who has recorded and toured Goss’s Guitar Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Describing the concerto in an interview for Soundboard, Williams said, ‘I don’t know of any guitar concerto which is as consistently successful on all fronts’.
His music is marked by a fascination with time and place – both immediate and remote – and the musical styles that evoke them. In many of his compositions, contrasting styles are juxtaposed through abrupt changes of gear. As BBC Music Magazine noted ‘Goss weaves together an eclectic range of influences – at once retrospective and forward-looking’. His compositional voice is shaped by his parallel career as a guitarist – that is to say, as a performer, transcriber, arranger, improviser and collaborator with other composers and performers. Not surprisingly, his music often tests the boundaries between all these activities and original composition.
Goss has worked with many of the world’s major orchestras, including the Russian National Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. In his role as composer-in-residence for the Orpheus Sinfonia, Goss wrote his Piano Concerto for Emmanuel Despax (released by Signum Classics in 2013) and the Concerto for Five (for the unique combination of violin, saxophone, cello, bass, piano, and orchestra).
The Albéniz Concerto for guitar and orchestra was released to great critical acclaim on EMI Classics in 2010 and has since been performed in Europe, Asia, Russia, and the US. More recent concertos include Landscape and Memory, for two guitars and strings; A Concerto of Colours, for guitar and wind ensemble; the Koblenz Concerto, for two guitars and orchestra (for SoloDuo); and the very first concerto ever written for theorbo.
Recent commissions have come from percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, violinist Nicola Benedetti, lutenist Nigel North, and tenor Ian Bostridge; as well as guitarists David Russell, Xuefei Yang, Zoran Dukić, Miloš Karadaglić, Aniello Desiderio, Artyom Dervoed, and Łukasz Kuropaczewski. Goss’s eclectic approach has led to collaborations with artists as diverse as Alt-J, Avi Avital, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
As a guitarist, Stephen Goss has worked with many leading composers – Tōru Takemitsu, Hans Werner Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Rodney Bennett, Julian Anderson, and Elliott Carter. He has toured and recorded extensively with the TETRA guitar quartet, the soprano Jenevora Williams, and various new music ensembles.
Born in Wales in 1964, Goss studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he won the Julian Bream Prize) and at the Universities of Bristol and London (where he completed his doctorate in composition). His composition teachers were Edward Gregson, Robert Saxton, Peter Dickinson, and Anthony Payne, and he studied guitar with Michael Lewin. Goss is currently Professor and Chair of Composition at the University of Surrey, UK, and Professor of Guitar at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2021, he was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Still Life. In 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, an honour limited to 300 living people. His music is published by Les Editions Doberman-Yppan and distributed by Hal Leonard. He is a D’Addario artist and an Arsenal season ticket holder.