Gunnar Spjuth

GUNNAR SPJUTH (Born 1952) studied at the Malmö Academy of Music during the period 1970-74 under Professor Per-Olof Johnson. He was awarded a Diploma in Music from the Malmö Academy in 1974.

He has also studied under Josef Holecek in Piteå, Sweden (1968-69), John Duarte, Diana Poulton and Anthony Rooley in London (1975-76), Alfonso Borghese in Yugoslavia, Julian Bream in Lucerne, Switzerland (1975), Konrad Junghänel in Innsbruck, Austria, and Angelo Gilardino in Biella, Italy (1982). He has taken advanced courses in teaching and learning in higher education and project courses at Lund University (2006-2008).

GUNNAR SPJUTH was awarded first prize in the Norden Association Guitar Competition in Copenhagen in 1975. He was also awarded a foreign scholarship by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1975.

His debut concert was held in the Stockholm Concert Hall in the spring of 1976.

He participated in a number of TV and radio programes during the period 1980-2002. He also participated in a number of concert tours with Rikskonserter Sweden: “Music from five centuries” 1976-77, “A Little Literary and Musical” 1978, “Guitar of the past and today” 1979, “Guitar to One Thousand” 1981.

GUNNAR SPJUTH recorded an album in 1986, with music by Isaac Albeniz and Enrique Granados, as well as contemporary Swedish music by Hilding Hallnäs and Rolf Martinsson, specially written for Gunnar Spjuth. The album was nominated for the Swedish Grammis Awards in 1987. A new CD, "The Classical Guitar Reborn, Fifties' music played by Gunnar Spjuth", was released in the autumn of 1999.

He has participated in a chamber music concert project, with cellist Hege Waldeland (2001-2011). With newly-written works for cello and guitar by Rolf Martinsson and Staffan Storm. The CD ”Cello & Guitar” was released in spring 2013.

GUNNAR SPJUTH has been employed since 1974 as a Senior Lecturer in Classical Guitar and Chamber Music at the Malmö Academy of Music.

In addition to his teaching duties he has also organized a number of research and development projects: “New Guitar Music” 1986, “Spanish Piano Music in Transcription for Guitar” 1989, “Guitar Music from the 1950s” 1997, and “Music for Cello and Guitar” 2002.
Gunnar Spjuth was also employed as a research assistant by Professor Per Olof Johnson at the Malmö Academy of Music 1987-88.

GUNNAR SPJUTH has, in cooperation with the Malmö Academy of Music, participated in a number of exchange projects for university lecturers, where he has taught and performed in: Odense 1988, Reykjavik 2001, Jyväskyle 2003, Aarhus 2004, Oslo 2004, Portugal 2005, Seville 2007, Tallinn 2008 and Copenhagen 2009.

He has initiated and organized two study trips to Spain with students from the Malmö Academy of Music in 1996 and 2006.

GUNNAR SPJUTH received the Göran Lagervall Music Scholarship which was presented by HRH Crown Princess Victoria at a ceremony held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm on 28 november 2011. The panel’s statement read:
The Göran Lagervall Music Scholarship has been awarded to Gunnar Spjuth. In his role as senior lecturer in Guitar at the Malmö Academy of Music he has won a great deal of appreciation and respect for his inspiring teaching methods and for his research and development work in the areas of the arts and in teaching and learning in higher education.