Greet Schamp   Thu, 23 Dec 2004
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My name is Greet Schamp, my husband is a pianist and we have 3 children.
I'm earning a living teaching classical guitar at the local music academies.
I have a few (6)lutepupils, main difficulty is, as always, to find a good
instrument for a reasonable price.

I started guitar in 1969 but soon discovered the Elisabethan lutemusic
and wanted to get a lute. The first one, in 1972 was what we call
"gituit"=gitaar+luit (called lutar in english I suppose) with metal frets, 
but with already the shape of a lute!

Next my grandpa discovered a small shop in Breukelen, Holland where they
sold "real" lutes, this was an East German instrument, Nico Vanderwaals
called it a tennisracket when he restrung it. I played it for some
years.

Then I ordered a baroquelute by Michael Lowe who had a waiting list of
one year, but it finally turned out to be 3 years.

In the mean time I could use a 10 courses Jacob VandeGeest from the
Antwerp conservatory where I started classical guitar after my secondary
school(Latin-Sciences).

After that time, got my diploma Classical guitar in '76,  I was lucky to
have two years lessons with Konrad Junghaenel, who was teaching in
Antwerp before he succeeded his teacher Michael Schaeffer in Koeln.
By that time my baroquelute was ready , I had married and got two
children. As I was teaching guitar fulltime, plus two babies to care
for, there was not much time left for the lute!

Anyway I kept playing, got my own 8 courses renaissancelute built by
Paul Rans, and gave concerts together with a friend who read poetry. By
an add, found in the magazine Gitarre und Laute I obtained a second hand
sopranolute(6 courses) by Martin Weghaus. It has a very brilliant sound,
almost a mandolino.

I played in diverse ensembles, accompanied dancers, did lutesongs,
Johannespassionen and studied on my own.

In 1991, Tim Burris was hired by the Antwerp Conservatory to restart the
lutecourse after more than 20 years. I immediately went to study there
because he is specially good for baroquelute and was doing research on
Weiss in Dresden for his doctorate at Duke University. In 1995 I got my
lutediploma more for my own satisfaction than for the job it could give,
as I mentioned before, lutepupils are very rare.

During this last period I played alot of duets with my friend Nadine
Duymelinck, both renaissance and baroquelute and also in combination
with my sopranolute(Adriaensen) and with her husband Miguel, who is a
singer. We had alot of concerts the past years and you can see a picture
of us on the website of the Belgian lutesociety(she in pink, I'm in
green)

Summer 1998 I visited my sister in NZ and learnt to know William Bower
and Don King, lutenists in Wellington and on the way back I met Tommie
Anderson as well after a concert in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
In the 1999 summer I went to California for holidays and met the Bay
Area lutenists at D.A.Smith's house at Menlo Park. It was a nice experience
to see all the persons I corresponded with already before, thanks to
this lute- newsgroup.

(Dough Smith, Mike Peterson, the other Mike, Sean Smith, Deanne 
we had alot of fun playing together, unfortunately the soundsystem
of my videocamera didn't record well, but I have the pictures and nice
remembrance of that evening)

Presently I'm Vice president and secretary of the Belgian lutesociety,
please visit us at http://home.tiscali.be/lutacabel/index.html
and thanks to the e-mailsystem, which is a very practical way to keep 
in touch and send articles,we edit a quarterly magazine in flemish and 
french. Arto Wikla and Rainer von der Spring contributed already!


Season greetings, Zalig Kerstmis en Muzikaal 2005
Greet