Michael Strutt

Strutt, Michael

Michael Strutt. Guitarist, lutenist, teacher, b Prestbury, Cheshire, England, 14 Apr 1945. Raised in the Manchester area, Strutt began piano lessons in 1956, studied guitar 1963-5 with Terrence Usher, and took up the lute. He continued his studies 1965-6 with Julian Bream and in 1974 with José Tomas and José Luis Rodrigo in Alicante, Spain. A recitalist and chamber musician on BBC TV Strutt, playing the lute, won that network's 1968 'New Faces' competition. He moved to Canada in 1969 and performed in Regina, Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle and with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. He played on CBC radio and TV and taught 1971-2 at the University of Victoria before moving in 1973 to Montreal. At the 1974 Concurso Internacional de Guitarra he won a full scholarship to the Santiago de Compostela Master Class and a series of concerts in Alicante province in 1975. He began teaching at McGill University in 1974, at the University of Ottawa in 1976 (establishing a lute-major program there), and at Vanier College, Montreal, in 1977. He moved to Vancouver in 1979 and began teaching at Douglas College in 1981 and also at the University of British Columbia in 1983, where he established undergraduate major (1987) and master's (1989) programs in guitar performance. He has specialized in 16th-century repertoire for the lute, but in the 1980s he devoted far more attention to contemporary, and especially Canadian, guitar music. He has appeared with the Vancouver New Music Society and Magnetic Band, and has played over 100 concerts with the Vancouver Guitar Quartet and Allegra (a flute and guitar duo with Lynne Piening). Strutt also performed at international guitar festivals (eg, Guitar '81 and Guitar '84, in Toronto) and at Expo 86, and in 1987 he toured Poland. He has premiered works by Marc Armanini, Edward Arteaga, Robert Benedict, Sherilyn Fritz, Anthony Genge, John Oliver, and Richard Payne. He has performed many broadcasts for the CBC and often acts as a jury member for guitar competitions. He is a contributor to EMC.