Guitarist
“William Anderson is one of our finest guitar players”, says The Music Connoisseur. The New York Times described Anderson as “first rate” (Bernard Holland)… “a sensitive, thoughtful player”(Allan Kozinn). Thomas May, in The Washington Post, praised his “technical and expressive virtuosity”, and his “quasi-orchestral palette of coloristic effects…deftly realized as he shaped each entry with eprigrammatic concentration.” While his repertoire encompasses the entire guitar and lute literature, his chief interest is in the music that is coming next, and he continually astonishes his audiences with surprising new works by composers young and old from all over the world. “Anderson astonished everybody with his ability to deal with a great variety of musical idioms, his skill in utilizing the entire range of tones and moods. He stretched himself from abstract concentration…through serenity and humor…to meditative melancholy.”…Magdelene Dziadek, Ruch Muzyczny, Warsaw.
Mr. Anderson has been a soloist for the Tanglewood Festival, the Bang on a Can Festival; the Europe-Asia Festival; the Theater Chamber Players of Washington D.C.; the Brooklyn Philharmonic; the Festival International de Guitarra in Morelia, Mexico, and Die Rotenburger Guitarwoche in Germany, among many others. He has given solo recital tours in the United States, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Holland, playing classical and contemporary music including works of his own. Anderson’s first solo recital in New York City was presented by The League of Composers/ISCM at Weill Hall in 1990. In 1994 he was presented by Music >From Japan in a recital at the Asia Society in New York City.
Anderson is now co-director of the CYGNUS Ensemble, which he founded in 1985 as a means of presenting new works for guitar and other instruments. Cygnus is continually receiving rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, most recently from Paul Griffiths, in the New York Times, who praised Cygnus for its “excellent concert” in January of 1998.
Anderson has recorded three CD’s for Titanic and Soundspells Productions. He appears on seven other CD on various labels. His performances have been broadcast on Performance Today; WNYC’s Around New York, and New Sounds; WGBH, Boston’s Chamber Works; German National Radio, Polish National Radio, and Danish National Radio. Anderson teaches guitar at Sarah Lawrence College. –Review Excerpts
“…seemingly modest dimensions can trick the ear into an impression of vaster scale. Guitarist William Anderson brought both technical and expressive virtuosity to his accounts of Falla’s Ommage to Debussy and of excerpts from Robert Martin’s Diary of a Seducer…calling for a quasi-orchestral palette of coloristic effects. They were deftly realized by Anderson as he shaped each entry with epichromatic concentration.”
– Thomas May The Washington Post
“William Anderson is one of our finest guitar players, and this recital showed not only his virtuosity but also his commitment… Three recent works benefitted from his brilliant and sonorous playing.”
– Leo Kraft The Music Connoisseur
“Anderson astonished everybody with his ability to deal with a great variety of musical idioms, his skill in utilizing the entire range of tones and moods. He stretched himself from perfect,almost abstract concentration in pieces by Brickle and ter Veldhuis, through the serenity and humor of DeFalla and Sauguet, to the meditative melancholy of the Schubert songs.”
– Magdelene Dziadek, Ruch Muzyczny, Warsaw
“The mindful voice of Ives, or Stravinsky and of Mr. Wuorinen’s music would not seem to be implied much by such a song as “Night and Day,” but Mr. Anderson’s extraordinary arrangements of numbers by Jerome Kern and Richard Rogers set them squarely and astonishingly in the same tradition.”
– Paul Griffiths, The New York Times
“…a sensitive, thoughtful player.”
– Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
“First rate player.”
– Bernard Holland, The New York Times
“Played with virtuosity and a close attention to style.”
– Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post
Sample Program
- Three Schubert Leider
- Guitar solo versions by Johann Kaspar Mertz (b.1806) Fantasy
- Anthony Holborne Fantasy
- John Dowland Theme Variations and Finale
- Manuel Ponce Intermission Strumming
- Meyer Kupferman Mazurkas and Polonaises, op. 3
- Johann Kaspar Mertz Soliloque
- Henri Sauguet Invocation and Danse
- Joaquin Rodrigo