Collection: Gammie, Ian
Ian Gammie read modern languages at Cambridge University, and while there continued studying classical guitar privately. Thereafter he studied guitar for several years with Luis López in Santiago, Chile. With a widening enthusiasm for music of the 16th and 17th centuries, he studied viola da gamba in London, at first with Natalie Dolmetsch and then with Jane Ryan. His subsequent career in early music, playing viols, lute, theorbo and early guitars included work with David Munrow, Alfred Deller, James Bowman, Dame Emma Kirkby and numerous specialist ensembles. These included The Consort of Music, The English Consort of Viols, The London Early Music Group, Opera Restored, Kent Opera, Studio XVII Augsburg, The City Waits, The Cambridge Baroque Camerata, Galliarda, Café Mozart and The Windsor Box & Fir. He has featured in concerts, recordings and radio broadcasts in most countries of Europe as well as North America. He has been featured on several episodes of The Early Music Show on BBC Radio 3and additionally worked for many years playing violone with several chamber orchestras.
As a teacher he has worked for numerous schools and colleges, coaching individual pupils, guitar ensembles and small jazz bands. For a number of years, he toured in the UK with the viola player Steven Tees, having designed various programmes of music for guitar and viola; as a brief part- time interest he also ran the jazz ensemble The Hot Cross Buns.
In the late 1970s his academic work in the field of early music led to the publication of music from various manuscripts and continued with the preparation of performing editions. Together with his colleague Dr Derek McCulloch he has researched and produced a catalogue of the eight music books belonging to Jane Austen and her family; these are held at her house in Chawton. In 1985, while coaching several children’s guitar ensembles he founded Corda Music Publications to make guitar ensemble music more widely available in practical performing editions. Over the years Corda Music has published 275 works for guitar, ranging from solos, teaching books, duets, ensembles for three to eight players, and chamber works for voice and/or various instruments with guitar. Additionally, Corda Music has published 120 editions for early music ensembles and 75 editions for modern strings, principally for the viola.
Ian Gammie’s compositions and arrangements include works for guitar solo and ensemble, for the bass viol, viol ensembles and for modern strings. He has translated a number of 16th and 17th century treatises on music; his most recent book is 19th Century Guitar Songs, a catalogue with examples of the songs from that period which are currently held in the British Library and several other collections. He is married with two children and three grandchildren. Having lived for 55 years in St Albans, UK, in retirement he hopes to see some of his works continue to be available through Bergmann Edition.