The York Guitar Quartet started performing as an ensemble in 1983. Since then they have toured extensively performing at Arts Centres, Festivals, Universities and many other venues.

Brief History
1983: John Mackenzie, Andrew Forrest, David Ashworth and David Scarth formed the York Guitar Quartet initially using three standard (tenor) guitars and one acoustic 4-string bass guitar to explore their mutual enjoyment of guitar music.
1986: Made our first recording,'York Guitar Quartet', featuring music by Bach, Corrette, Carulli, Walton and Vaughan Williams.
1990: Augmented the existing instruments with Requinto guitars tuned a fourth higher than standard, giving the Quartet an extended range and wider tonal palette.
1992: Commisioned a new bass guitar of original design from luthier Dave Gregory, with six strings and a tone closer to the classical guitar. Our preferred combination of instruments ever since has been either two requintos, tenor and bass; or, one requinto, two tenors and bass; or, less frequently; three tenors and bass.
1997: Our second recording, 'On the Overgrown Path', featuring music by Janacek, Bartok and Stravinsky released on CD.
2005: Founder member David Ashworth left York and the Quartet. David made many great contributions to the development of the quartet in performance, repertoire and organisation. We wish him well in his future musical endeavours.
2006: New member Mark Currey joined the quartet. yorkguitarquartet.com website created.

We also pride ourselves on a unique repertoire. We believe that the classical guitar can do so much more than the familiar Spanish-flavoured repertoire (although the spanish influence is represented). The current recording for example, is devoted to works of East European origin. Some of our own compositions feature African influences, contemporary musical styles such as minimalism, and even rock and jazz. We have also commissioned some fine new compositions from other composers. While trying to push back the barriers of classical guitar music, we also take our responsibilities to our audiences seriously, and choose pieces that are exciting, beautiful and accessible.

We use a unique combination of instruments. Most guitar quartets use four identical classical guitars. We use a various combinations of the standard (or ‘tenor’) guitar, requinto (or ‘alto’ guitar, smaller, higher-pitched with a bright almost mandolin-like tone) and a bass classical guitar (an octave lower than standard with a full, mellow bass tone). This gives us a concept analogous to a string quartet, each instrument having a distinctive tone variation. It also extends our total range to five octaves.

Our latest recording is called ‘On the Overgrown Path’ and features arrangements of works by Eastern European composers, Janacek, Stravinsky and Bartok. The Janacek has some lovely contemplative moments, the Stravinsky shows him at his most playful. We’re particularly proud of our Bartok recording. Bartok is often considered ‘difficult’ to listen to, but many reviewers and audience members have said how accessible our versions are. Many have said it’s the first time they’ve enjoyed Bartok! I think the reason is that the guitar brings to the fore the influence of East European folk music and it almost sounds like it should have been written for the guitar.