Michael Laucke
Michael Laucke was a Canadian classical, new flamenco and flamenco guitarist and composer. Starting at the age of thirteen, Laucke gave professional snooker demonstrations and his winnings allowed him to take trips from Montreal to New York City to study the classical guitar with Rolando Valdés-Blain. With a career spanning over 30 years, Laucke began performing in 1965, recording the first of 16 albums in 1969, and toured in 25countries. In 1971, he performed his first of many concerts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His first concert in New York, where he also first met Senator Claiborne Pell, took place in 1972.
Laucke was introduced to complex flamenco techniques by Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucía when the two shared a loft and performed together for the jet set in New York City in the early 1970s. In 1982 he was selected by Andrés Segovia to perform for the PBS network at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Laucke subsequently became Segovia's pupil, and also studied with other classical guitar players, including Julian Bream and Alirio Díaz. He performed mainly on classical guitar until 1990; from then until has last performance in 2015, his concerts consisted exclusively of flamenco and new flamenco works.
Laucke broadened the guitar repertoire by creating over 100transcriptions of classical and flamenco music. Several notable Canadian composers have written atonal works for him. SOCAN's The Music Scene magazine considered Laucke to be one of "five of Canada's best-known soloists". Music critic emeritus, historian, and musician Eric McLean of the Montreal Gazette avowed: "Laucke is the person who has done more for the guitar in this country than anyone else." He received many other awards and honours throughout his career, including the Grand Prix du Disque-Canada for Best Canadian Recording. He was also a music industry businessman.
Early life
Laucke was born in Montreal, Quebec, on 29 January 1947 to parents of Russian- and Polish-Jewish heritage. After they separated when Laucke was sixmonths old, he lived with his mother, brother, uncle, and grandmother. His grandmother raised and nurtured him; she died at the age of 100.At the age of seven, Laucke appeared in the Montreal Star newspaper having designed and built a boat from 2,000 toothpicks. A yo-yo expert by age ten, he soon discovered that he loved performing and competing, eventually winning a C$60bicycle as the champion among 2,000contestants in a Montreal yo-yo competition. He discovered an interest in playing guitar, but his brother disapproved, so he practiced at friends' homes. He also took up snooker, and became competent enough by the age of thirteen to gain a job as a demonstrator for the Brunswick Corporation, a snooker table manufacturer. Laucke learned billiards from George Chenier, a fellow Montrealer and the North American snooker champion. The two faced each again four years later at the North American snooker championships in Montreal, where Laucke won the championship. Laucke recalls: "Then I decided to leave snooker, I had done what I wanted to do... My love for the guitar was overwhelming. There was a lot more money in snooker, but snooker was just a passion, and music was my love." Laucke's snooker winnings allowed him to finance 110trips from Montreal to New York City to study the classical guitar with Franco-Spaniard Rolando Valdés-Blain.
Early career
With Frank Angelo as his manager since 1961, Laucke performed his first guitar concert in Montreal in 1965, a program of atonal music with the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. In 1971, following the first of his many concerts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post proclaimed that Laucke had displayed "the highest form of virtuosity". His first concert in New York took place in 1972 at the Greenwich House Music School. Senator Claiborne Pell was in attendance and invited Laucke to perform his first concerts in Washington, DC, thus beginning a 15-year affiliation as Laucke's active supporter in the U.S. Pell's former campaign manager, Raymond Nelson, handled logistics for many of Laucke's U.S. performances. In 1973, Laucke starred in a documentary produced by Radio-Québec called La Guitare, and he performed at Montreal's Summer Olympic Games in 1976.Laucke studied with several classical guitar masters: FrancoSpaniard Rolando Valdès-Blain from 1963 to 1977, Julian Bream in 1969 as winner of the Julian Bream Master classes, Alirio Díaz from 1977 to 1979 and Andrés Segovia from 1982 to 1986. Laucke was introduced to complex and advanced flamenco techniques by Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucía when the two shared a loft in New York City in the early 1970s. During this period, de Lucía and Laucke gave a concert in the Spanish Embassy, where Countess Elsa Peretti, jewelry designer at Tiffany's, first heard the two guitarists. She immediately invited them to one of her parties at her New York penthouse, where the two guitarists performed in private for the New York City jet set, including fashion designer Calvin Klein, Andy Warhol, Halston, and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo. The Montreal Gazette noted that these artistic gatherings were: "the closest thing to the 18th century intellectual and artistic salon to be found anywhere these days". Laucke was frequently hired to play at the launches of Giorgio di Sant' Angelo's new fashion lines and later those of Calvin Klein. "I was only 21 at the time, and it all seemed like a dream," Laucke recalled. In 1977, he founded Trio3 with Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr and Pauline Vaillancourt, and the D'Addario strings-manufacturing company became his sponsor.
His recording of works by William Walton, Richard Rodney Bennett, and François Morel on the Radio Canada International label won the Canadian Music Council's Grand Prix du Disque-Canada in 1979. The album included Morel's new composition Me duele España, written for and dedicated to Laucke. The world premiere of the 21-minute piece took place at Place des Arts in Montreal, under the auspices of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec.
Later that year, with an increasing number of concerts and recordings, and a busy travel schedule, Laucke became concerned that he would not have enough hours left for practising. He invented a "practiser": a small, wooden fingerboard with six strings stretched across a bridge. The device measured and allowed him to practice quietly during travel. Laucke found that: "Those extra hours of finger exercises pay off in handsome performance dividends."
Laucke recorded his last classical album in 1981 with singer Riki Turofsky and Guitar and Lute magazine declared it: "One of the best voice and guitar albums you will ever hear." Although Laucke had played both classical and flamenco guitar music from an early age, he performed mainly classical guitar works until 1990. From late 1990 until his last performance in 2015, his concerts consisted exclusively of many flamenco and new flamenco works he learned from de Lucía.
Teaching
He was a professor of guitar at Concordia University in Montreal in 1976, but left after two years to pursue a performing career. Ten years later, however, he released an eight-tape instructional video series, to pass along the knowledge he had learned from his teachers. This video series was reviewed by Guitar Player magazine: "Laucke's enthusiasm is infectious" and by Frets Magazine: "thoughtful and thorough instruction". Laucke also published articles on classical guitar.Style and influences
Laucke's classical/flamenco musical style is a blend of his classical studies with Bream, Segovia, Valdès-Blain, and his friendship with deLucía. Although classical and flamenco guitar are two quite different musical styles, Québec's French-language newspaper Le Soleil chronicled Laucke's feelings and reasoning about performing both.His blend of the classical and flamenco styles, sometimes referred to as "new flamenco", led music critic Eric McLean of the Montreal Gazette to proclaim: "It is Laucke's interest in flamenco that makes him special: He might be called the first interpreter of flamenco music, in the sense that he borrows these traditional works by Sabicas, Carlos Montoya and Paco de Lucía, and employs them in his own fashion, a practice to which they agree." Laucke summarized: "The Spanish guitar remains my first love. The flamenco guitar is my passion." According to The Music Scene magazine published by Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, he is one of "five of Canada's best-known soloists" and the Canadian federal and provincial governments gave him "full recognition as the person who has done more for the guitar in this country than anyone else".
Paco de Lucía
In the 1970s, Laucke moved to New York City to further his career. He was asked by Valdès-Blain if he would mind sharing his one-room apartment with flamenco guitarist Paco deLucía. Laucke taught deLucía music by Bach and Villa-Lobos. In return, deLucía showed Laucke some of the secrets of his art of flamenco, an oral tradition handed down through generations, "their secrets and knowledge jealously guarded". Although Laucke had played flamenco for his own pleasure since he was a child, he had never felt comfortable playing it in public. De Lucía's influence helped change this: "This meeting changed my life," Laucke declared, "he taught me flamenco works which were not written anywhere and to which no other guitarist had access. So for me to be taught all these techniques by a guitarist of Paco's caliber was an incredible stroke of luck".In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Laucke stated: " was the greatest natural talent I have ever come across." At the time, Laucke was impressed by a piece called Entre dos aguas that de Lucía was creating, which became arguably his best-known composition. Since deLucía did not read music, Laucke offered to teach him but he refused. When the question arose as to whether Laucke would ever play deLucía's compositions in public, he advised Laucke, "you must do it in your own style".
He teamed up again with de Lucía to give a series of concerts combining the two repertoires. Many newspapers talked about this association. The Canadian Spanish magazine El Popular stated: "Laucke is convinced that flamenco possesses enormous seductive powers. 'The harmonies and the rhythm leave no one indifferent', says Laucke."
The meeting with de Lucía led Laucke to perform two incompatible guitar styles. In 1991, he recorded compositions deLucía taught him on the album Spanish Guitar Stories. DeLucía expressed his approval, saying the album was: "very beautiful, all of it, from ato z, even my pieces!"