Home Is Where the Heart Is: Guitar Works

“Home is where the heart is” is a familiar saying, suggesting that home is not simply a place, but wherever one feels the deepest sense of belonging, warmth, and connection. For me, this idea has a particular meaning. Over the years, I have often moved back and forth between classical guitar performance and other areas of music —playing jazz, composing for different instruments and ensembles, as well as working in musicology and analysis. Yet every time I return to the classical guitar, something deeply familiar comes back with it: a sense of warmth, intimacy, and recognition that reminds me why I fell in love with the instrument in the first place.

In a way, this album is also a return home. Although the works differ in style, origin, and musical language, they are connected by a shared fascination with resonance, modality, memory, place, and the expressive possibilities of the guitar. Together, they form a journey through different musical landscapes while remaining rooted in the instrument’s unique voice. The album is conceived as a collection of contemporary works for classical guitar, bringing together music by established international composers and three of my own compositions. Its central idea is to present different approaches to the contemporary guitar repertoire, ranging from lyrical and folk-inspired writing to more contrapuntal, atmospheric, and structurally developed works. The inclusion of three of my own works gives the programme an additional personal dimension, allowing the album to become a dialogue between performer and composer and, ultimately, between departure and return.

Kostas Parisiadis

Andrew York – Home

In Home, Andrew York reveals the more introspective and lyrical side of his musical language. The natural flow of the melody and the warmth of its harmonic colours create a sense of intimacy and calm, suggesting an imaginary return to a deeply personal and familiar place. Avoiding overtly virtuosic gestures, the piece relies instead on expressive immediacy and subtle shifts of tone colour, highlighting York’s distinctive ability to combine simplicity, sensitivity, and a contemporary approach to writing for the guitar.

Kostas Parisiadis – Five Steps to Nowhere

Five Steps to Nowhere is a cycle of five miniatures for two guitars, each representing a different stage in a journey toward the fulfilment of a personal goal. The first piece, Daydream, evokes the initial moment of aspiration: the emergence of plans, dreams and expectations. Rush, the second miniature, reflects the tension and growing intensity that inevitably accompany the pursuit of those ambitions. Breakdown turns inward, portraying the discouragement and emotional exhaustion that may follow disappointment or failure along the way. The fourth miniature, Rebirth, marks a moment of renewal. The final miniature, Nowhere represents the culmination of the preceding stages: the moment in which perseverance, renewal and aspiration converge. It draws upon the idea and contrapuntal procedures of the fugue without strictly adhering to traditional fugal form. There are two versions of the piece: one for classical guitar duo and another for electric guitar duo. I was particularly interested in exploring how the distinct timbral qualities and performance approaches of the two instruments could lead to different interpretations of the same musical material.

Carlo Domeniconi – Schnee in Istanbul

In Schnee in Istanbul, Carlo Domeniconi creates a brief poetic soundscape in which stillness and introspection meet subtle echoes of the musical world of the East. Its understated melodic writing, modal inflections, and delicate use of the guitar’s natural resonance evoke an almost dreamlike atmosphere. Like a fleeting image of a city momentarily transformed by snow, the piece combines a sense of suspension and quietness with an underlying melodic flow.

Carlo Domeniconi – Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song

In Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song, Carlo Domeniconi draws upon the traditional music of Anatolia, reimagining its melodic material through a series of contrasting transformations. At times, the original melody retains its simple, song-like character; at others, it acquires greater rhythmic intensity and virtuosic energy. Modal inflections and the distinctive use of the guitar’s colours create a bridge between an oral musical tradition and contemporary concert writing, while the identity of the original melody remains present throughout the work.

Sanja Plohl – Fugue

In Fugue, Sanja Plohl revisits one of the most rigorous forms of the Western musical tradition through a contemporary and highly personal guitar language. Contrapuntal writing is combined with the mellow character of the Aeolian mode and irregular metres, giving the piece a subtle folkloric flavour and a distinctive rhythmic vitality. The balance between structural discipline and rhythmic freedom reveals a fresh, contemporary approach to the fugue, naturally adapted to the expressive possibilities of the guitar.

Matthew Dunne – Appalachian Summer

Written for the 2005 Guitar Foundation of America competition, Appalachian Summer combines lyricism with passages of considerable rhythmic energy and virtuosity. Gentle, song-like sections alternate with music of greater speed and intensity, revealing contrasting aspects of the guitar’s expressive and technical range. Through an immediate and strongly melodic musical language, Matthew Dunne creates a bright and expansive work that evokes the atmosphere of the American landscape without resorting to literal musical depiction.

Τhalassaki (Traditional of Skyros – Greece)

Thalassaki is a beautiful traditional Greek song from the island of Skyros. Although the melody has been arranged and reinterpreted in many different ways, this adaptation for classical guitar moves considerably beyond the conventions of a traditional arrangement. Its introduction reflects Antonis Apergis’ own adaptation of the song, while the piece as a whole incorporates improvisatory elements and freely transforms the original material. In doing so, it gradually reshapes the character of the song, placing the familiar melody within a distinctly personal musical context.

Kostas Parisiadis – Homage to Astor Piazzolla

Homage to Astor Piazzolla is one of the first pieces I ever composed. Originally written for guitar, flute, and cello, the work eventually took its final form in an adaptation for guitar and flute. Its musical material is built around a very short motif taken from Astor Piazzolla’s Campero. From this small idea, the piece develops its own musical language, while retaining throughout a strong tango character that inevitably evokes Piazzolla’s distinctive style, though approached from a very different perspective. I would like to express my sincere thanks to guitarist Michalis Kontaxakis and flutist Konstantina Roussou, who were the first musicians to perform live and record the piece. As a thank you, this CD contains their own rendition of the piece, which I find great.