The guitar has not been slow to recognize the value of this kind of influence, though inevitably perhaps there have been relatively few who have attempted the task outside of a Spanish or Latin-American national style. One such compositional voice which deserves your attention belongs to the Oklahoma-born guitarist and composer Brad Richter, whose music bristles with a lively and honest American sound, polished and refined with a secure understanding of those techniques of development and harmonic resource usually considered the preserve of abstract European classical music.
Richter's origin in rural Oklahoma meant he was self-taught and had no access to formal guitar education until in 1989 he was awarded the coveted Presidential Scholarship to the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he worked with Paul Henry, moving in time with the Conservatory to the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University, where he graduated with Honours in 1993. However, perhaps both the independence of spirit fostered by years of enforced self-tuition, and the wide range of music absorbed at that time, meant that this highly educatedguitarist with a wide repertoire of standard works would inevitably gravitate towards the production of original music for his own and others performance. This course of action was encouraged when Richter was offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, being one of only seven musicicians from around the world who were chosen for this unusually distinguished Master's course. The only American and the only guitarist, Richter studied guitar with Carlos Bonell, composition with Timothy Salter, and won the Thomas Mohrrer Prize (the only guitarist to do so) and the performance prize in the RCM guitar competition.
Since his return to the USA, Richter has developed a wide-ranging international performance career, and seen several works published by GSP in San Francisco, including the Eight Preludes which formed part of his Masters at the Royal College, the overtly folk-inspired Dance of the Harvest Fires, and Fractal Reflections. All these works exude the charachteristic Richter elements of vitality, intelligence and carefully controlled contrasts. Quite how someone with the physique of a Marine produces such delicate sonorities is an interesting challenge to expectations: however, even the more virtuoistic and excitable moments have a habit of falling under the fingers comfortably.
Richter's latest work takes in the direction of some Native American influence -- Four Native Tales. No doubt the perpetual pony-tail helps, but there is little doubt that Richter's claim to some Native American genes is substantiated by his appearance. More importantly in artistic terms, the right to gather up and be fertilised by one or another folkloric influence is open to all who sympathetically share the emotional life of that influence, and can be trusted with its beauties.
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