Nicholas Goluses’ 70th birthday concert is Wednesday, April 16th at 7:30pm in Hatch Recital Hall at the Eastman School of Music. WXXI’s Brenda Tremblay spoke with classical guitarist Nicholas Goluses about his plans.
Here is an edited excerpt from their conversation.
Q: You have a new album coming up out soon. Why did you call it Across the Horizon?
A: As someone who is about to turn 70, I was thinking about what I wanted to record at this stage in my life, and a lot of this music is from places that I've visited and wanted to revisit. We've also come through some pretty hard times with COVID and the like. There's been a journey that I want this record to represent.
Q: I remember an interview that we had years ago, and you talked about the personal quality of the guitar and the intimacy of the instrument. Do you still feel the same way about it?
A: Yeah, even more so than ever. I just I think that its intimacy is what continues to keep me coming back for more. Every time I hear a guitarist play, I hear the fingerprints all over the instrument. There's really nowhere to hide with the guitar. It's quite a primitive instrument by nature, because when you think about it, it's just one step up from a drum. You have to create everything at your fingertips. And I've always loved that.
Q: Do you have a nickname for your instrument? Yo-Yo Ma, I think, calls his cello "Petunia."
A: (Laughs) Oh, that's a wonderful name. Yes, Victor.
Q: How has your relationship with the guitar changed over time?
A: When I was younger, I was looking to create something big and large and full-bodied. I still try to do that, but at this point, I'm now realizing that the guitar is colors. It's a color machine. And as I hear my own students playing, and I hear them using different colors, I just I want more of that in my own playing, and then I turn around and I encourage them to use more of that in their playing.
Q: For a lay person that doesn't play guitar, how do you create colors?
A: It's the way you pluck the strings. Classical guitarists use a combination of nail and flesh. So if you pluck the string directly, it's a brighter sound. If you pluck the string obliquely, it's a darker sound. If you play closer to the bridge, it's a brighter sound. If you play closer to the sound hole, it's a much fatter, thicker sound. And then with the left hand, we're actually producing sound as well. "Loud" is a euphemism for more artistic choices, I think. More range. With the guitar, the challenge is to get the hands to work at the same time, because you have one note coming out of both hands, and the precision has to be there.
Q: Have you had any health issues or chapters of your life in which you couldn't play as well?
A: My hands are really strong. They seem like they they're as good as they were when I was younger. I recently have gone through some hip replacement surgery. I had the first one done last November. I'm having the second one done in May, and that's been a revelation for me — how much we actually use the lower trunk when we play. As far as my hands go themselves, like most musicians, I've had little injuries here and there, and those are rites of passage. When we have those, we come back stronger, and we stop throwing our hands around and become a lot more efficient in our playing.
Q: Nick, what connected you as a human being on this planet with the guitar?
A: When I was a boy, I was playing electric guitar in a rock band, and we were very popular up until around the sixth or seventh grade. One night, I was watching TV with my dad, and we were watching The Ed Sullivan Show. This was around the time that the Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show, and this old guy came on, looking angry, and played. It was Segovia. It was so beautiful, and I don't know why I thought that, because there was no music in my house. I didn't know anything about classical music. But I saw this, and I heard this, and way the music just was flowing just kind of spoke to me. So I said, "Dad, who's this?" And he said, "Well, that's a real musician." The gauntlet had been thrown down. In Rhode Island at that time, there were really no guitar teachers, so I started trying to teach myself a little bit. I got a classical guitar and then eventually I found a couple of teachers in Boston, in Hartford, and I started getting some good lessons.
Q: You had a chance to meet Segovia, didn't you?
A: Yes! I studied with him at the end of his life, and I did some master classes with him. And then when I was teaching at the Manhattan School, I invited him to come and give what were ultimately his last master classes. He was kind of larger than life, like Rubinstein and like Casals. These were the Titans. I told him the story about The Ed Sullivan Show, and he got furious. He could turn bright red. And he said, "Ed Sullivan was an idiot," he said, because they turned the applause light on before he was done with his Bach Allemande. And so he never went back. If you go back and look at the YouTube videos of Segovia on The Ed Sullivan Show, you'll see it. The first thing Sullivan wanted to do was shake his hand, and you know, he's about to play. So he got his hand caught in the Ed Sullivan handshake vice grip. Then he had to play. But, I mean, it was beautiful, and it changed my life.
Q: You it sounds like you've done a lot of thinking about getting older. What are some of your thoughts about turning 70 and having this amazing life in music?
A: Wow. That's a really interesting question, because it's been the honor of my professional life to train these young students. Yes, okay, I've played some concerts and I've made some records, and that's been nice. But as I look back on these students and then I see them years later, in their teaching or in their playing, I see my fingerprints on them, but they've also just grown and nothing is more special than that. You know, it really makes you feel like you've made a difference.