Tim Sparks (born October 31, 1954) is an American

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

player, singer, arranger and composer.

Life

Raised in

Winston-Salem, North Carolina Winston-Salem is a city in Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the List of municipalities in North Carolina, fifth-most populous ...

, he was given his first guitar when a bout of

encephalitis Encephalitis is inflammation of the Human brain, brain. The severity can be variable with symptoms including reduction or alteration in consciousness, aphasia, headache, fever, confusion, a stiff neck, and vomiting. Complications may include se ...

kept him out of school for a year. The music he heard around him was traditional country blues, and the gospel his grandmother played on piano in a small church in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

, so that's what he taught himself to play. He was nominated for a scholarship at the prestigious

North Carolina School of the Arts The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) is a public art school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It grants a high school diploma, in addition to both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Founded in 1963 as the North Carolina Sc ...

. There he studied the classics with

Andrés Segovia Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña (21 February 1893 – 2 June 1987), was a Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist. Many professional classical guitarists were either students of Segovia or students of Segovia's students. Segovia ...

protegee Jesus Silva. While recording three albums with the seminal vocal jazz ensemble Rio Nido, Sparks also became proficient in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

styles from Brazilian to

Bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

, which brought him several regional music awards including Best Acoustic Guitarist, Best Latin Jazz guitarist, and Best Jazz Guitarist in the

Minnesota Music Awards The Minnesota Music Academyhttp://minnesotamusicacademy.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20031004090950/http://www.minnesotamusicacademy.org/about.cfm Minnesota Music Academy is a non-profit music institution in Minnesota. The Academy gives out t ...

. In 1993 he won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship at the

Walnut Valley Festival The Walnut Valley Festival is an acoustic music festival held annually in the small city of Winfield, Kansas, United States. The main genre of music is bluegrass, but a wide variety of other acoustic styles are represented. The festival is held ...

in Winfield, Kansas, playing his adaptation of

The Nutcracker ''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...

Suite by

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...

. In the late 90s, Sparks had been immersed in the ethnic music scene and accompanying on guitar in Greek and

Klezmer Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...

orchestras. He was a featured performer with Crossing Borders at the Bethlehem International Music Festival in July 1995 and has received two Arts Fellowships to pursue ethno-musicological studies. He spent one fall studying

Fado Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado ...

and Portuguese guitar in Lisbon. In 1989 he arranged Russian

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

for the

Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions among Sir Tyrone Gut ...

's adaptation of ''

Uncle Vanya ''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897, and first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstan ...

'' and in 1991 he was commissioned to compose music for ''

Tienanmen The Tiananmen , also Tian'anmen, is the entrance gate of the Forbidden City imperial palace complex and Imperial City in the center of Beijing, China. It is widely used as a national symbol. First built in 1420 during the Ming dynasty, Ti ...

'', a ballet depicting the student uprising in China, for Myron Johnson's Ballet of the Dolls. In 2000, Sparks began an association with American composer

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conducting, conductor, saxophonist, arrangement, arranger and record producer, producer who "deliberately resists category". His Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental music, ex ...

. He has recorded four highly acclaimed CDs of Jewish

music adapted for acoustic fingerstyle guitar on Zorn's label,

Tzadik Records Tzadik is a record label in New York City that specializes in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995. He is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases. Tzadik is a not-for-p ...

. He earned a McKnight Fellowship to notate and edit the arrangements on ''Neshamah'' for publication. Sparks has performed as an opening act for

Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and philanthropist, known primarily as a country music, country musician. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton's debut album ...

and has performed on the same stage as Sándor Szabó,

Franco Morone Francesco Morone (born June 6, 1956, Lanciano, Abruzzo, Italy) known as Franco Morone, is an Italian guitar player, teacher, composer and arranger specializing in the fingerstyle technique. He is the author of several books and has recorded CDs a ...

Cyro Baptista Cyro Baptista (born December 23, 1950) is a Brazilian-born percussionist in jazz and world music. He creates many of the percussion instruments he plays. Career Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship ...

, Isato Nakagawa and

Bill Frisell William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist. He first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a participant ...

. He has also performed on such national venues as

A Prairie Home Companion ''A Prairie Home Companion'' was a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed ''Live from He ...

, the main stage of the

Winnipeg Folk Festival The Winnipeg Folk Festival is a nonprofit charitable organization with an annual summer folk music festival held in Birds Hill Provincial Park, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The festival features a variety of artists and music from around t ...

and the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society. He has performed at the Edenkoben Festival and the Dresden Guitar Festival in Germany and held a Jazz Guitar teaching residency in Lisbon, Portugal. He frequently tours Japan, France, Belgium, Austria and Hungary. Sparks is a past faculty member at the

University of Minnesota Morris The University of Minnesota Morris (UMN–Morris) is a public liberal arts college in Morris, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the University of Minnesota system and was founded in 1960 as a public, co-educational, residential liberal a ...

and continues to perform in concert.In Conversation with Tim Sparks.
Retrieved May 10, 2010.

Discography

Albums

*''

The Nutcracker Suite ''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. The plot is a ...

'' (1993) *'' Guitar Bazaar'' (1995) *'' One String Leads to Another'' (1999) *'' Neshamah'' (Songs From The

Jewish Diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...

) (1999) *'' Tanz'' (with

and

Greg Cohen Greg Cohen (born July 13, 1953) is an American jazz bassist who has been a member of John Zorn's Masada quartet and worked with numerous other noted musicians for over four decades. Career Cohen plays traditional jazz and other styles, includin ...

) (2000) *'' At the Rebbe's Table'' (2002) *'' Sidewalk Blues'' (2009) *'' Little Princess'' (2009) *'' Chasin' the Boogie'' (2014)

With others

*'' Dream Café'' ( Greg Brown) (1992) *''

Masada Guitars ''Masada Anniversary Edition Vol. 1: Masada Guitars'' is the first album in a series of five releases celebrating the 10th anniversary of John Zorn's Masada songbook project.

'' (also featuring tracks by

and

Marc Ribot Marc Ribot (; born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer. His work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, Rock music, rock, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notab ...

) (2003) *''Le Freylekh Trio featuring Goulash System'', (2009,

Harmonia Mundi Harmonia Mundi is a record label that specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group, which is itself owned by Universal M ...

) *''Tsimtsoum'', 2010 *''Jukebox Dreaming with James Buckley (2018)

Video

*''In Concert'' (with Franco Morone) *''Guitar Bazaar: Multicultural Ideas for Fingerstyle Guitar'' (instructional video) (1995) *''Fingerstyle Guitar: New Dimensions and Explorations'' (concert video) *''Roots, Rags, and Blues'' (instructional DVD) (2007)

Sheet music

* ''The Nutcracker Suite'' (1993) (Acoustic Music) * ''Balkan Dreams Suite'' (1996) (

Mel Bay Melbourne Earl Bay (February 25, 1913 – May 14, 1997), known professionally as Mel Bay, was an American musician and publisher best known for his series of music education books. His '' Encyclopedia of Guitar Chords'', first published in 197 ...

) * ''Guitar Bazaar'' (1996) (Acoustic Music) * ''Fingerstyle Excursions'' (1998) (Mel Bay) * ''Neshamah'' with Bruce Muckala (2004) (Mel Bay)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparks, Tim American fingerstyle guitarists Living people 1954 births Tzadik Records artists 20th-century American guitarists