The composers describe their works in their own words together with their biographies and links to the WAGO recordings on YouTube
A Somerset Ceremony by Ivan Andrews
‘The first ideas for this piece came from a conversation with Vince Smith, organiser and leader of the Wyvern Afinado Guitar Orchestra (WAGO) based at the Hewish Village hall for whom the piece was written and to whom it is dedicated. Vince had in mind a journey from the parent’s cottage to Puxton’s 13th century church, a ceremony in the church and then a party at a local pub. There was a pub called the Palmer’s Elm in Hewish (now the Flavour Indian Restaurant – which has itself now just closed) where the supposed fiesta could have taken place.
Having acquired a number of unusual ‘classical’ guitars to enhance the sound of the Orchestra, Vince wanted the piece to include parts for a Soprano Guitar (tuned an octave above a standard guitar), a Quint (tuned a fifth above a standard guitar), a Requinto (tuned a fourth above a standard guitar) and a bass guitar (tuned one octave below standard guitars). I found this wide spread of guitar sounds exciting to work with as it provided a wider spectrum of colours than an orchestra made up of just standard guitars
The piece is in three movements, each lasting approximately 5 minutes written for a number of guitars. The 1st Movement – ‘Preparation’ – is very rhythmic in nature and tries to conjure up the excitement and anticipation as well as a little apprehension possibly felt before the ceremony. The 2nd Movement – ‘Ceremony’ outlines the solemn moment of the ceremony and the 3rd movement- ‘Celebration’ brings the piece to a conclusion with a joyous celebration for what has taken place. All three movements are tuneful in nature and the piece could be about any ceremony, although there is a hint of the wedding march in the second movement. It is called a ‘Somerset’ ceremony because WAGO are based in Somerset.’
Ivan G Andrews
I was born into a musical family. My father was a pianist and conducted a brass band in the Salvation Army and I was taught to play a brass instrument at the age of seven. I took up the guitar at 16 inspired by Cliff Richard’s band The Shadows. At the age of 21 I decided to take up playing classical guitar and by the age of 33 had achieved grade 8 with distinction on that instrument. I had always wanted to compose music and in my spare time began studying books on harmony, counterpoint and other techniques. In the 1980’s a friend, fellow guitarist and member of a guitar trio I was playing in was writing pieces for guitar ensemble and he encouraged me to have a go, which I did, discovering I could do it.
I have since written a number of pieces for guitar ensemble, for guitar and violin and latterly for full orchestra and even brass band. In 2015 I went to the University of Bristol to undertake an MA in music composition and graduated with Merit in 2017.
Mendip Hills Suite for guitar orchestra by Steven Landis
‘The vast beauty and geographical variety of the Mendip Hills National Landscape, and its deep connection to early human history, inspired this suite. From Horizons and Hills to Dolebury Warren… sets an atavistic scene of early man traversing the ancient Somerset countryside. Inspired musically by both the bydlo from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, the listener joins the story, as they say in theatre, “In medias res (in the middle of things)” as a group of hunter- gatherers steadily make their way across the landscape. A clockwork of interlocking polyphony all led by the Contrabass bring the story to life. By the end, the caravan, always on the move, fades into the distance.
The phantasmagoric and dance-like character of King’s Wood evokes hazy images of a small late night gathering deep in the forest. Sitting around a dying fire, musicians ply their trade to help keep the darkness at bay. This movement features the Quint, supported by the Requinto, the Contra, and the tutti.
The soaring quality in the third movement, Big Sky Over Crook Peak, reflects the breath- taking beauty of the many vistas found throughout the Mendip Hills. The solo Soprano melodies are harmonized and commented on by the Requinto. One of my first impressions of the Mendip Hills area and early inspirations for the composition comes from the photograph at the top of the page.
Aveline’s Hole is the oldest burial site in Britain and one of the many caves found in the area. Aveline’s Recitation is a solo for the Requinto. In the form of a recitative, the solo line floats mysteriously in time, while the accompaniment acts as echo returns fragments of the melody that bounce around the tutti, mimicking the acoustics and physical space of the cave itself.
The Mendip Hills Suite closes with an expanded full tutti reprise of the first movement in … Across and Beyond Blackdown Plateau. The melodies are developed and shared across the four solo voices, while the layered ostinato of the tutti have swapped voices. By the end, the clamour fades, once and for all, into dim memory.
The Mendip Hills Suite was commissioned by, and dedicated to, Vincent Smith and the Wyvern Afinado Guitar Orchestra.’
Steven Landis
Steve Landis is a Part-Time Lecturer at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and he serves as instructor of double bass and composition at the Music Academy of North Carolina. He is also a founding member and bassist of the Winnfield Quartet, a section member of The Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, and bassist for the Greensboro rock band, The Nonprofits.
Steve’s aesthetic style emphasizes extreme contrasts within the musical materials and encourages a collaborative relationship between the score and performer. His work synthesizes the craft of Western art music and the energetic DIY spirit of underground punk/metal traditions through the integration of improvisation, performance space, and environment as aspects of the composition. As a composer, Steve works with many mediums including solo instrumental, mixed chamber groups, large ensembles, digital and mixed media, and film and theater. Steven has held residencies at the Millay Colony, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and Wildacres Artist Retreat.
Steve earned his DMA in Composition at The University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, a MM in Composition from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a MM in Double Bass Performance and a BM in Composition from The University of Florida.
Western Wyvern by Gerald Garcia
‘On 13 October 1954, a Royal Navy aviator called Bruce MacFarlane took off from the deck of the British aircraft carrier Albion, somewhere in the Mediterranean. Moments later his plane plunged into the water in front of the ship. MacFarlane was flying a heavy and powerful aircraft called the Westland Wyvern, an attack fighter powered by an enormous engine, which drove two contra-rotating propellors at the front of the aircraft, each spinning in a different direction.
The Wyvern had had a troubled development and had only entered service the year before.Taking off, the Wyvern would be subjected to high g-forces which momentarily starved the engine of fuel, causing what is known as a “flame out”. The Wyvern, weighing more than seven tonnes without fuel or weapons, was not a natural glider. During this first deployment, several Wyverns were lost off the bow of the carrier after taking off.
But MacFarlane’s accident was something different. Despite being powered by propellors, the Wyvern was a product of the jet age, and was one of only a few non-jet aircraft to feature an ejection seat – vital for pilots whose aircraft plummeted into the water just a few seconds after coming off a carrier’s deck. MacFarlane had no time to activate his seat before his Wyvern plunged into the water and the 24,000-tonne aircraft carrier cut the submerged Wyvern in two as it ploughed over it. He waited for the carrier to pass before he was able to jettisoned the plane’s canopy.
Then he pulled the handle… and nothing happened. MacFarlane pulled the handle again, and this time the seat exploded into action. The pilot now found himself tumbling in the maelstrom of water under the Albion’s hull and he soon realised he was being dragged deeper under the water. MacFarlane used his seat in a way the designers had never intended, and became the first ever pilot to successfully eject from an aircraft underwater.
The explosive charge of the ejector seat dissipates into the atmosphere normally, but the sudden change in pressure basically turns the aircraft into a bomb and pilots who eject from the water’s surface have a whole set of other challenges, including the disorientation of suddenly being underwater, and a chance of decompression injuries – the “bends”– if they rise to the surface too quickly. Miraculously, Macfarlane rose to the surface of the sea and survived.
This piece is inspired by the Westland Wyvern and MacFarlane’s ordeal, and celebrates the designers of the aircraft and the brave airmen who flew in them.’
Gerald Garcia
Gerald Garcia – studied Chemistry at Oxford University and now lives in Oxford.
When not performing as a guitarist in Borneo or the Arctic Circle, he writes music and conducts and trains ensembles.
His ’25 Etudes Esquisses’ for guitar solo have been recorded for NAXOS by John Holmquist and Alison Bendy and his music has been played and recorded by David Russell, Craig Ogden, the Amadeus Duo, the Eden-Stell Duo, Xue Fei Yang,the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and John Williams. His compositions have also been performed or recorded by the Oxford Concert Party and the early music ensemble Charivari Agreable.
His concerto for 2 guitars based on themes collected by Garcia Lorca (the Lorca Concerto) has been performed throughout Europe and is a staple of the guitar duo repertoire – it has recently been recorded on the Hanssler label by the Amadeus Duo and with the National Youth Guitar Ensemble by the Eden Stell Duo.
His concerto for violin, guitar and strings (Concerto Romantico) was performed in February 2013 to a capacity audience in Vilnius Congress Hall by the Lithuanian State Symphony with Vilhelmas Cepinskis and Sergej Krinicin
His orchestral and choral music has been performed at the Festival for Youth and Music two years running and he has written many guitar and orchestral works.
His music and arrangements have been published worldwide by Mel Bay, Holley Music, ABG publications, Guitarissimo and Cramer.
His teaching experience has included educational workshops with Kent Opera, English National Opera and the Academy of St.Martin-in-the- Fields.
He is a regular tutor at the International Guitar Festivals in Iserlohn, Germany and West Dean, UK.
He is at present musical director of the National Youth Guitar Ensemble which brings together young guitarists from all over the UK to play guitar orchestral pieces, some of which have been commissioned for the group.
He has taken part in and created music workshops for both school children and teachers in Britain and Scotland and is a popular adjudicator at music festivals around the world.
As a session guitarist he has been heard in many films scored by Gabriel Yared, Michel Legrand, Stanley Meyers and Philippe Sarde, amongst others.
He has recorded more than 14 CDs with Naxos, Meridian, Acoustics and Saga which have sold more than 50,000 copies world-wide.
He has performed with many other musicians and actors, notably guitarists Paco Peña, John Renbourn and John Williams, and performs in a duo with Alison Bendy and with Simon Mayor’s Mandolinquents as well as in an occasional Irish”ensemble” with Mick Henry, Bernard O’Donoghue, John Pethica and Tom Paulin.
In October 1995 he toured China in a duo with guitarist John Williams playing to audiences of tens of thousands of Chinese guitarists and teaching at Beijing and Shanghai conservatoires.
He has been invited back to China more recently with teaching posts at Guangzhou, Beijing and Chengdu.
Wessex Wyverns by Stephen Goss
‘ A wyvern is a mythological creature, similar to a dragon, but distinctive in various ways: wyverns have two legs (rather than four), full wings, a barbed tails, scales, and they tend not to breath fire. The wyvern has been widely used as a symbol in heraldry and has associations with King Arthur, King Alfred, King Harold, Wessex and modern Somerset.
The piece begins with a jousting fanfare; Arthur is said to have worn the symbol of the wyvern during a joust with Lancelot – the prize? The hand of Guinevere.
An ouroboros is a circular symbol depicting a snake, dragon, or wyvern, swallowing its tail. It is an emblem of wholeness or infinity. Here the music is calm and reflective.
In Wells cathedral, wyverns are represented in some of the misericords (small wooden structures formed on the underside of folding seats to support standing worshipers during long periods of prayer). I selected three of them for movement 3:
A wyvern preening itself,
A wyvern fighting a horse
A man trying to kill a wyvern.
King Alfred the Great (of burnt cakes notoriety) used the wyvern as the heraldic symbol of Wessex. Here the music uses a melody purportedly composed by Alfred himself ahead of the Battle of Edington in 878 AD. The Norton Fitzwilliam rood screen dates from around 1500 and depicts a detailed dragon/wyvern story across nine different scenes.
In the 13th Century, a wyvern appeared from Warminster Sleight (near Dinder in Somerset) and began eating the local sheep and cattle, and some say children too. The locals begged Bishop Jocelin to slay the dragon which he did. Before it died the dragon warned that it would return every 50 years and if it had not been honoured it would come back to life. So, every 50 years, the locals hold a feast for the wyvern of Worminster Sleight.
The final movement celebrates the new flag of Somerset which depicts a wyvern like creature (albeit with four legs!). The flag was adopted following a competition in July 2013.’
Stephen Goss
The ambient landscape composition of Stephen Goss are utterly captivating – The Independent
Goss weaves together an eclectic range of influences – at once retrospective and forward looking – BBC Music Magazine
Stephen Goss is a composer, guitarist and academic. His compositional output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music and solo pieces.
Born in Wales in 1964, Goss studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he won the Julian Bream Prize) and at the Universities of Bristol and London (where he completed his doctorate in composition). His composition teachers were Edward Gregson, Robert Saxton, Peter Dickinson and Anthony Payne. He has been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award, and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music
As of 2026, he is Professor of Composition in the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries at the University of Surrey. He is also professor of guitar at the Royal Academy of Music in London and director of the International Guitar Research Centre, which he founded with John Williams and Milton Mermikades in 2014. Before moving to the University of Surrey in 1999, he taught at the Yehudi Menuhin school.