Mike Soloway - Instruction

Instruction

As a teacher Mike is interested in encouraging and guiding each student’s growth while recognizing his or her own strengths and weaknesses. The development of knowledge and ability in technique, theory, memorization and improvisation are all part of a mix with the student’s own personality and goals at its center.

Mike has taught classical guitar at the following:

New York University
City College of New York
Jersey City State College
the Third Street Music School

Mike is a graduate from Manhattan School of Music majoring in classical guitar and has performed frequently in the New York City area. His debut performance at Carnegie Recital Hall was reviewed by the New York Times (see bottom of page).

Mike’s development as a classical, folk and jazz guitarist began at an early age and led to studies with some of the world’s most reknowned teachers including:

Leonard Gitano
Stanley Solow
Alexander Bellow
Aaron Shearer
Manuel Barrueco
Alan Hanlon
Barry Galbraith
Tim Kirkpatrick

The New York Times:

Michael Soloway Offers Wide-Ranging Guitar Bill

A young guitarist, Michael Soloway, made an impressive debut at Carnegie Recital Hall last Sunday. Debut concerts such as these tend often to be lonely affairs; but on this occasion, the hall was virtually packed with friends and admirers, and indeed there was much for them to admire. Mr. Soloway, to be specific, enjoys an exceptional command of his instrument, and at no point in this reasonably taxing program was there any sense of strain or struggle over the technical difficulties. His musical personality ranged from the somewhat passive and abstract in a Prelude, Fugue and Allegro by Bach to amorously evocative in the Torroba Sonatina that ended the evening. But whatever the temperature of Mr. Soloway’s passions at any given moment, graceful and fluent good sense was never far away. Bach’s sequential patterns had a hypnotic quality, and Lennox Berkeley�s Sonatina was amiability itself.

Mr. Soloway seemed to bring technique and musicality most perfectly into balance when he played Scott Joplin’s "Solace," a piece whose mournful yet delicate chromatic beauties will remain with us long after the ragtime vogue has faded away. Joplin wrote "Solace" for the piano, and the transcription here was by the performer himself.

–Bernard Holland