Calum Scott Borthwick - Guitarist and Educator Calum Scott Borthwick was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland.
Surrounded by music from infancy, he developed an appreciation for the art of classical guitar which would ultimately lead him to a successful academic career and a fruitful vocation as an instructor. Initially pursuing his talents at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Calum received his Bachelor of Arts with honors. From there, he was urged to seek higher accreditation based on scholarship
After a long break it’s time to get back to sharing some music. Been working on some new things and revisiting some old. Played this Bach fugue nearly a decade ago for my Bachelor recital and auditions for Masters. Nice to come back to it with the years of experience behind me and hear new things. Bit rusty but I’m enjoying it.
13/08/2020
Our album is now available on all major streaming and digital services. I'm forever proud of what Russ and I achieved with this project. Please give it a listen, share it about and check out the other artists involved with the project.
All our love to everyone who contributed to the album, we couldn't have done this without you.
Eyes to the Future Derelict Hands · Album · 2020 · 11 songs.
18/07/2020
The gruesome twosome
In lieu of videos over the last few days here’s a full performance of the first movement from Frank A Wallace’s wonderful suite “The Elements”.
I’ve been reworking this piece to record in honour of Frank’s untimely death a few weeks ago. It’s been hard to play his music knowing that he’s gone but it also helps to keep his spirit alive by playing his music.
It’s not quite perfect yet but I’m trying to heed Frank’s advice to me and to stop waiting for things to be perfect to give myself permission to share them.
Some practice of the challenging final page of Muir Woods from In the Woods by Takemitsu. The arpeggio section is really tough to get clean with all the dynamic contours and shifting.
Here’s a longer video than usual - the middle part of Hika by Leo Brouwer is a workout for the hands so I’ve been trying to stay tension free throughout while still maintaining all the drama and energy required in the music. Part of the process is recording myself to see if I can perform under pressure and this first take today is the happiest I’ve been with it in a while.
07/06/2020
I’ve been mostly quiet about current events as I’m wary of being unhelpful/getting in the way of people who actually have worthwhile things to say. Instead I have been trying to educate myself about the issues.
One thing I can say is that the classical music scene has a big problem with representation and I’ve been a part of that problem. Here’s a fantastic resource guitarists can use to find some great music written by black composers for the guitar and hopefully we can stop circulating the same music written by the same people and use our platforms to promote some more diversity in our scene.
I’d encourage other classical musicians to do the same.
I'm so very sad to hear about the Death of Wallace Frank. Russ and I wanted to share a movement from his Duo Sonata that we recorded for our first album a few years ago. There is so much I could say but I'll let Frank's music speak for itself.
Here is “Waintscot Pond” from Takemitsu’s “In the Woods” recorded at home this weekend.
Reuploading this here because I forgot that the Facebook algorithm hates YouTube. (Thanks to Russ for the reminder)
Hopefully this gets a little more reach now!