He was born on February 21, 1893 in the town of Linares, situated in one of Spain's

autonomous regions, Andalusia.

After living with his parents for two years, he was moved to Villacarillo under the care of

his childless uncle and aunt, Eduardo and Maria.

He started playing guitar at the age of six. His uncle used to sing songs to him and

pretended to strum an imaginary guitar in his lap.

When he was ten, his uncle and aunt moved to Granada where he received his formal

education. He also acquired his first guitar while living in Granada.

His first experience of classical guitar music was a performance by a flamenco guitarist,

Gabriel Ruiz de Almadvar.

He became his own teacher and started practicing on his music. He was deeply involved
in self-education to master the art of playing classical guitar.

PUBLISH

Career

At the age of 16, he performed publicly for the first time at the Centro Artistico, Granada in

1909.
After some years, he gave his first professional concert in Madrid. Most of his performed

compositions were the works of Francisco Trrega and some of them were his own guitar
transcriptions of J.S. Bach.
Over the next few years, he played at many concerts such as, in Madrid in 1912, at the

Paris Conservatory in 1915 and in Barcelona in 1916.

He also made a successful tour of South America in 1919. In 1923, he played at a concert

in Mexico for the first time.

In 1928, his first tour to America was organized and afterwards he met Heitor Villa-Lobos,

the Brazilian composer. Their friendship lasted for life as Lobos composed many tunes for him
in the later years.
In 1932, he became friends with the composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in Venice.

Although, Mario did not play the guitar, he composed many tunes in later years and dedicated
most of them to Segovia.
In 1935, he gave his first public performance of Bach's Chaconne and received wide

appreciation for it. Subsequently, he moved to Montevideo and continued to perform at many
concerts in South America during the 1930s and early 1940s.
After the World War II, he began to record more frequently and regularly toured Europe

and the USA, continuing to do so for the next 30 years of his life.
He continued performing into his old age, living in semi-retirement during his 70s and 80s

on the Costa del Sol. He gave master classes throughout his career for his lifelong mission of
propagating the guitar.
During the summer of 1986, he taught master-classes for the last time at the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles.

PUBLISH

Major Works

He is credited to have dignified the classical guitar as a legitimate concert instrument with
his remarkable conviction and influential personality.

He influenced a generation of classical guitarists who built on his technique and musical

sensibility. He was able to popularize the guitar with the help of new technological advances
such as recording, radio, and air travel.
He was one of the first artists to endorse the use of nylon strings instead of gut strings in
guitars. This new development allowed for greater stability in intonation.

PUBLISH

Awards & Achievements

In 1974, he was awarded the Danish Sonning Award.

In 1981, he was honored by the King Juan Carlos I with the 1st hereditary title of

Marqus de Salobrea in the nobility of Spain in recognition of his contributions to music and
the arts.
He received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1985.
In 1986, he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He also received many awards and honorary degrees from numerous prestigious
universities.

PUBLISH

Personal Life & Legacy

Andrs Segovia had multiple marriages and relationships. He married Adelaida Portillo in

1918. In 1935, he married Paquita Madriguera, a pianist. He developed a relationship with the
Brazilian singer and guitarist, Olga Praquer Coelho, in 1944, which lasted for over a decade.
In 1962, he married Emilia Magdalena Corral Sancho and they were blessed with a son,

Carlos Andrs Segovia, in 1970.

He died on June 2, 1987 of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain. He is buried at Casa Museo
de Linares, in Andalusia.

Born Andres Segovia Torres, February 21, 1893, in Linares, Jaen, Andalusia,
Spain; died of a heart attack June 2, 1987, in Madrid, Spain; father was an
attorney; married first wife (divorced, 1962); married Amelia Corral
Sancho; children: (first marriage) Beatrice, Andres; (with Sancho) Carlos.
Made debut in Granada, Spain, 1909; made debuts in Paris, France, Berlin,
Germany, and London, England, 1924; made American debut, 1928. Taught
guitar at schools and universities throughout the world, including the
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and the Academia Musicale
Chigiana, Siena, Italy. Member: Royal Music Academy of Stockholm,
Sweden; Academy of St. Cecilia, Rome; Academia Filarmonica of Bologna,
Italy; Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid; Fine Arts Santa
Isabel of Hungria, Seville, Spain; Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Nuestra
Senora de las Angustias, Granada, Spain.
Andres Segovia, the most celebrated classical guitarist the world has ever
known, is unquestionably acknowledged as the founding father of the
modern classical guitar movement. Through his performances on concert
stages worldwide, arranging and commissioning of new works for guitar,

and teaching activities, Segovia gave the guitar new stature. He changed the
guitar from an instrument of popular entertainment into a vehicle of serious
classical music, thus inscribing his name in the annals of music history.
Segovia was born February 21, 1893, in Linares, Jaen, in the region of Spain
known as Andalusia. Because his father, a lawyer, found it difficult to
support his large family, Segovia was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in
Granada at age ten. It was the uncle who introduced Segovia to music, and
the boy studied piano and violin at the Granada Musical Institute. While he
was little interested in these instruments, he was attracted to the guitar
upon hearing it played at a friend's home.
Because the guitar--used to accompany folk songs and dances in taverns-was not a well-respected instrument, Segovia had to learn to play on his
own. Thus, he was largely self-taught, applying what he had learned of
classical music theory and history in general to the guitar in particular. As a
result he developed his own technique, which is characterized by a beautiful
sonority, supreme expressivity, and the eliminating of extraneous sound
and movement.
In 1909 at age 16, Segovia made his public debut at the Centro Artistica in
Granada. His recital was so well received that he began to perform
throughout Spain, and in 1916 he made a successful tour of Latin America.
From this early in his career, Segovia aspired to elevate the guitar from the
noisy and disreputable realm of folkloric amusements, where it was held in
contempt by serious composers of classical music. Throughout his career
Segovia never lost sight of this goal, which he knew could only be realized by
distinguished performances of serious pieces. Since the repertoire was
extremely limited, Segovia looked to the works of the great composers for
pieces suitable for transcription, and during his lifetime he produced dozens
of transcriptions and editions of works.
Segovia's 1924 debut in Paris, France, was attended by many distinguished
dignitaries of the music world and gave direct impetus to the composing of
new guitar works by major composers of the era, such as Manuel de Falla
and Manuel Ponce. Many composers did not know enough about the
guitar's capabilities or limitations to compose works for it without Segovia's
direct assistance. New pieces heard in concert inspired the writing of others,
gradually building the body of literature for classical guitar.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Segovia's popularity rose with his
repertoire, with country after country being captivated by his performances.
While at first many thought that the guitar would not be able to be heard in
a large concert hall, Segovia proved otherwise, demanding and getting
complete silence from sell-out crowds of often more than a thousand. "The
real music lover wants to hear the small instrument speaking straight to the
heart of the people," he once said.
When civil war erupted in Spain in 1936, Segovia was forced to leave the
country. He resettled in Montevideo, Uruguay, from where he made tours of

South America. He later resided in New York City for many years, before
returning to southern Spain.
Segovia began recording works as early as 1925, eventually recording the
majority of notable works for guitar, including pieces by Johann Sebastian
Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Enrique Granados, Isaac Albeniz, Manuel Ponce,
Federico Moreno Torroba, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, among others. In his
book Segovia, Graham Wade provides an extensive discography of Segovia's
more than forty long-playing albums.
To perpetuate the playing of the guitar as he created it, Segovia aspired to
provide a unifying medium for those interested in the guitar. He did so
through his contributions to the international musicological journal, Guitar
Review, in which he published many technical articles and in which his
autobiography first appeared in serial form. He also tried to influence the
authorities at conservatories, academies, and universities to include the
guitar in their instruction programs on the same basis as the violin, piano,
cello, and other instruments. By the late 1980s more than 1,600 schools of
music in the United States offered guitar in their curricula.
While Segovia worked regularly at various universities, taught many master
classes, and gave numerous private lessons, he never systematized his
technique in guitar method. Views on such matters can be found in the
numerous prefaces to editions of music or have been detailed by others,
such as Vladimir Bobri's Segovia Technique or Charles Duncan's The Art of
Classical Guitar Playing.
A man of regular habits, Segovia practiced five hours daily in 1.25 hour
increments, emphasizing with students the need to practice scales to
maintain sound technique. Among his most notable students are John
Williams, Christopher Parkening, Oscar Ghiglia, Julian Bream, and Michael
Lorimer. Segovia was a purist and moderate in all aspects of his life. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he disliked the use of amplification, because it
distorts the true sound of the guitar, and he once denounced rock 'n roll as a
"strange, terrible and dangerous disease." Segovia always scrupulously
avoided any exhibitionism or sensationalism in his performing.
Segovia enjoyed an illustrious career that spanned seventy-eight years. In
his nineties he continued to teach, maintain his regular practice regimen,
and perform sixty concerts annually. In June of 1987 the maestro of the
guitar succumbed to heart problems.
by Jeanne M. Lesinski

Andres Segovia's Career

Andres Segovia's Awards
Grammy Award, 1958, for Segovia: Golden Jubilee; received grand crosses,
gold medals, prizes, and honorary citizenships from numerous cities,

regions, and countries throughout the world; received honorary doctorates

from numerous universities, including Oxford University, Autonomous
University of Madrid, University of Granada, University of New Orleans,
University of Florida, and University of North Carolina.
Read more: Andres Segovia
Biography http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608000061/Andr
es-Segovia.html#ixzz3sg2cKkvO