Marco Schmidt
Marco Schmidt was born in Hamburg in 1960 and studied classical guitar in Vienna, Cologne and Basel. He has won competitions in Germany, and at the Scandinavian Guitar Festival in Finland, the Andres Segovia competition in Granada, Spain, the Tokyo Guitar Competition and the Milan International Guitar Competition.
A busy international recitalist, Schmidt has been invited to perform in Finland, Hungary, Slovacia, Poland, Russia, France, Great Britain, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Austria and Germany, and has made radio and TV recordings for German, Finnish and Spanish broadcasting stations and for American Public Radio.
In 1994 he made his first CD recording featuring works by Mertz, Sor and Giuliani played on an original 19th Century instrument, which was acclaimed by Classical Guitar magazine as "a real step forward for the guitar and its music", and has also championed new music including the premiere in 1997 of the 3rd guitar concerto by Stephen Kenyon.