2024 - 2025 Community Concert Series
Swede Larson in Concert
03.22.25 3:00 pm
***FREE ADMISSION***
Enjoy an inspiring performance featuring music by Coste, Ponce, Bach, York, Sor, and Vivaldi.
Glendale Library, Rooms A & B
1375 S. Concord St., SLC 84104
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
Swede Larson began playing the guitar with his father at a very early age, and brings a unique perspective to the instrument. His passions rest in sedate musical experience and the vigorous sport of exploring caves. In college he had to choose between them, and made the choice to study under Frank Koonce at Arizona State University. While there he traveled in the summers attending competitions and conventions, gaining the opportunity to study with guitarists such as Oscar Ghiglia, Michael Chapdelaine, Bruce Holzman, Martha Masters, Nicholas Goluses, Rachel Gauk, William Kanengiser, Lily Afshar, and others.
After college Swede began a project to record the entire contents of Guitar Classics Vol. 1 edited by Jerry Willard, in the span of just one year. During that time he learned a great deal about what it takes to produce an acceptable classical guitar recording. With the extreme pressure of recording so much music in such a short time, Swede only published four albums of the eleven recorded albums of music completed. But those were to be his first. In 2013 Swede and Mezzo-Soprano Amber Nordvik received a grant with funding largely from the family of John W. Duarte, to produce a debut album of all the guitar and vocal music of John W. Duarte. In 2014 Swede produced an album of Niccolo Paganini Guitar Sonatas.
In 2015 Swede began teaching guitar at London Studios and took a sabbatical from performing in order to focus on teaching. Throughout his musical career Swede has guided guitarists from many different walks of life, with many different goals in playing. His guidance on the guitar is focused on bringing the highest musicianship and the solid technique of playing regardless of style or genre. In Swede’s own words “playing the guitar well is done the same way, whether you are playing Joaquin Rodrigo or Led Zepplin, good technique is good technique, period!”
in fall 2018 Swede received a privately-funded match grant, along side crowd source funding, to expose new audiences to the classical style of guitar playing in Utah.
To date Swede has played in such venues as Arizona State University-AZ, Westminster College-UT, Salt Lake Community College-UT, Brigham Young University-UT, Stetson University-FL, Utah Tech University-UT, Southern Utah University-UT, National Guitar Workshops-CT, Utah Classical Guitar Society-UT, Springville Museum of Art-UT, Rice Eccles Stadium, UT
Swede continues to work diligently to show what is possible for the guitar and expose new audience to the instrument. He is very excited to bring this, the most beautiful of instruments, to life, to the public, and to you.
