艾里奥特·菲斯克是目前世界上非常知名的一位古典吉他演奏家，他的演奏有独奏和与交响乐队合奏等多种形式，此外他还经常演奏一些室内乐作品，例如他的老搭档，长笛演奏家Paula Robison。他们的二重奏唱片Mountain- Songs，曾经得到了葛莱美提名的荣誉。
艾里奥特·菲斯克在奥地利Salzburg的Mozarteum建立了安德烈斯·塞戈维亚学院，并在那里担任教授，该学院是一个进行致力于扩大古典吉他音乐影响的国际性古典吉他教学、研究实体。
A creative innovator linked to the great romantic tradition of the past, guitarist Eliot Fisk is one of the most exciting and unique artists before the public today. Known world wide for his adventurous repertoire and willingness to take art music into unusual venues (including schools, senior centers and even prisons!) he belongs, as his great mentor Andrés Segovia once wrote, “at the top line of our artistic world.”
In June of 2006, by order of King Juan Carlos of Spain, Eliot Fisk was awarded the Cruz de Isabel la Católica for his service to the cause of Spanish music. Earlier recipients of this rarely bestowed honor include Andrés Segovia and Yehudi Menuhin.
Eliot Fisk has performed to dazzling critical and public acclaim in recital, as soloist with major orchestras and in a wide variety of chamber music combinations in most of the great concert halls of the world and in 1996 in a command performance in the Palacio de los Cordova in Granada, Spain, for then U.S. President Bill Clinton and King Juan Carlos of Spain and their families.
Eliot Fisk has expanded the repertoire for the guitar enormously through countless ground breaking transcriptions of works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, and others as well as through commissions from leading composers as varied as Luciano Berio, Leonardo Balada, Robert Beaser, Wiliam Bolcom, Xavier Montsalvatge, Nicholas Maw, George Rochberg and Kurt Schwertsik. His innumerable transcriptions and editions are published by Universal, Presser, Ricordi and Guitar Solo Publications.
Eliot Fisk’s many recordings for the Musical Heritage Society, DGG, Arabesque, and EMI have elicited unqualified praise and even entered the Billboard charts as bestsellers. Most of these recordings include repertoire never before performed on the guitar such as his legendary reading of the 24 solo violin Capricci, Op. 1 of Paganini (“Has to be heard to be believed!” — Ruggiero Ricci), his recordings of contemporary works by Berio and Rochberg or his recording with Paula Robison of Robert Beaser’s Mountain Songs, which was nominated for a Grammy. Guitar Review wrote that his versions of the complete Bach unaccompanied violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001-1006 “place him alongside Casals and Gould as one of this century's greatest interpreters of Bach.” On a lighter note, Gramophon Magazine described his transcriptions for violin, cello and guitar of Bach's Violin Sonatas BWV 1014 – 1019: “If exploring the instrumental potential of the continuo is Baroque music's equivalent of exploring Star Trek’s final frontier, then guitarist Eliot Fisk may be its Captain Kirk and his transcription of Bach’s Six Violin Sonatas its Starship Enterprise”.
Eliot Fisk's forays into unconventional territory have included collaborations with chanteuse, Ute Lemper; Turkish music master, Burhan Öçal; jazz guitar legend, Joe Pass; flamenco great, Paco Peña; and master of castanets, Lucero Tena.
Eliot's 2006 - 2007 season included four major premieres: Leonardo Balada's "Caprichos" (seven movements after songs of Federico Garcia Lorca for guitar and string quartet), Kurt Schwertsik's 25 minute "Ein Kleines Requiem" for solo guitar; Daniel Bernard Romain's concerto for guitar and chamber orchestra (“We March”); and Eliot Fisk's transcription of Mark O' Connor's violin concerto movement entitled, "Winter" for guitar and orchestra. A highlight of this transcription was Eliot’s cadenza which, in addition to modulating through an astonishing variety of remote keys, managed to quote Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and the Beegees’ “Stayin’ Alive” before concluding in a series of left hand trills accompanied by right hand artificial harmonics.
In the 2008 - 2009 season Eliot Fisk premieres Robert Beaser’s long awaited concerto for guitar and orchestra, commissioned by a consortium including the Albany Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Bruckner Haus of Linz, Austria. Following the premiere in Albany, further performances are scheduled at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York and Bruckner Haus in Linz both under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies.
In addition to his performing career Eliot Fisk is founder and director of Boston Guitar Fest, an annual cross disciplinary musical extravaganza co-sponsored by the New England Conservatory and Northeastern University and featuring a wide variety of performances, classes, seminars and even a guitar competition. The Festival has enjoyed phenomenal growth since its inception in 2006 receiving warm encouragement from Massachusetts Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry as well as from reknowned Massachusetts congressional representative, Barney Frank.
In 2008 Eliot Fisk began a highly anticipated collaboration with guitar legend Angel Romero. Only in its first season, this extraordinary collaboration is already booked in major venues from coast to coast and will headline Boston Guitar Fest 2008 in Jordan Hall on June 14th.
Eliot Fisk was the last direct pupil of Andrés Segovia and also studied interpretation under the legendary harpsichordist, Ralph Kirkpatrick, at Yale University from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1976. Called by one New York Times headline “A Fiery Missionary to the Unconverted,” Eliot Fisk devotes considerable energy to teaching. He is Professor at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches in 5 different languages, and in Boston at the New England Conservatory. His students have come from all corners of the earth. Many have gone on to become important performers and teachers in their own right.
Eliot Fisk lives in Boston, Salzburg, and (whenever possible) in his beloved Granada, Spain, with his wife, acclaimed guitarist