By Nick Hurt
In this segment Nick Hurt, host of Marfa Public Radio's Monday classical music program In Tune has a conversation with the guitarist and composer Andrew York.
The conversation was held in Odessa, Texas during the West Texas Guitar festival, which York headlined earlier this year.
York and Hurt discuss a broad range of topics including taking musical inspiration from mathematics, the state of contemporary guitar composition and York's new online educational subscription service Andrew's Den.
Speaking about the state of guitar repertoire York says, "there is truly no deep interest in doing the same thing over and over again. As we watched guitar audiences dwindle over the years primarily because, say someone goes to a concert in 1970 and thinks, 'that was good.' Maybe they go back in 2000, 30 years later, and hear the same pieces, maybe even not played as well, and think,'déjà vu, anything new happening?' This is such a common occurrence, and that is not the way to bring new life into the instrument. So for me, one of my goals is to bring the instrument into the present and the future."