Gilbert Emanuel Biberian (19 February 1944 – 27 January 2023) was a British

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. Born in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, Turkey of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

-Armenian heritage. Biberian's ethnic roots was integral to his compositions. He studied at

Trinity College of Music Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a music, dance, and musical theatre conservatoire based in South East London. It was formed in 2005 as a merger of two older institutions – Trinity College of Music and Laban Dance Centre. Trini ...

, graduating in 1968. In 1965 a French Government grant took him to France to study with Ida Presti and

Alexandre Lagoya Alexandre Lagoya (29 June 1929 – 24 August 1999) was a French classical guitarist and composer. His early career included boxing and guitar, and as he cites on the sleeve of a 1981 Columbia album, his parents hoped he would outgrow his predile ...

. He studied composition with James Patten,

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

and

Hans Keller Hans (Heinrich) Keller (11 March 19196 November 1985) was an Austrian-born British musician and writer, who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being a commentator on such disparate fields as psychoana ...

, as well as widening and enriching his musical knowledge by working with non-guitarists Anthony Kinsella (piano) and Vic Bennett (clarinet). Biberian has played at

the Proms The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Robert Newman founded The Proms in 1895. Since 1927, the ...

, at

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

and has performed concertos and given solo recitals worldwide. He has always enthusiastically encouraged and championed the creation of new compositions for guitar. New works have been written for and/or dedicated to him (for solo and ensemble) by James Patten, Elisabeth Lutyens,

Reginald Smith Brindle Reginald Smith Brindle (5 January 1917 – 9 September 2003) was a British composer and writer. Early life Smith Brindle was born in Cuerdon, Lancashire, to Robert and Jane Smith Brindle. He began learning the piano at the age of six, and late ...

, Alfred Nieman, Charles Camilleri,

David Bedford David Vickerman Bedford (4 August 1937 – 1 October 2011) was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music. He was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford, the grandson of the composer, painter ...

, Roger Williams, Glen Morgan, Robert Keeley, Jeffrey Joseph, Kenneth Paige, Daniel Sturm, Vojislav Ivanovic, Betty Roe,

Ivor Mairants Ivor Mairants (18 July 1908 – 20 February 1998) was a Polish jazz and classical guitarist, teacher and composer. With his wife Lily Schneider in 1958 he created the Ivor Mairants Musicentre, a specialist guitar store in London. Early years ...

, Geoffrey Burgon, Aurelio Peruzzi, Judith Bingham, Monique Cecconi-Botella, Ottavio Negro and Luis Morales Giacoman. In addition to his pioneering work in

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

, and always in search of exciting possibilities for the guitar, he expanded the role of the instrument by combining with mime in three works, "Pierrot", "Harlequin's Toccata" and "Colombine", which are now successfully established as stage and concert pieces. He produced a great number of compositions, not only for solo and ensemble guitar but also for all string instruments including a concerto for guitar, cello and 19 strings, which received its world première at the Habana International Festival of Guitar, Cuba, in May 1992. His guitar compositions are being recorded and performed by an ever-increasing number of guitarists. Biberian's compositions have been published in England, Italy, Holland, Canada and the US. Biberian died on 27 January 2023, at

Cheltenham General Hospital Cheltenham General Hospital is an NHS district general hospital in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, run by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It provides general hospital services including Accident and Emergency. The Trust headquart ...

Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

(

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

), at the age of 78.

References

Sources

Editions Orfee profile

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Biberian 1944 births 20th-century British classical composers 21st-century British classical composers Alumni of Trinity College of Music Armenian composers British classical guitarists British male guitarists British male classical composers British people of Armenian descent British people of Greek descent Composers for the classical guitar Living people Musicians from Istanbul Turkish emigrants to the United Kingdom Turkish people of Armenian descent Turkish people of Greek descent 20th-century British guitarists 21st-century British guitarists 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British male musicians Constantinopolitan Greeks