Projects
Collaborative, curatorial and recording projects exploring the guitar across different musical traditions, sound worlds and listening environments.
Golden Age Spanish Vihuela Music
I am currently recording a series of works from the vihuela repertoire, exploring a sound world that feels as vivid and immediate today as it was for its earliest listeners. This is music of remarkable freedom, where each composer shapes a distinct voice within some of the earliest printed sources of instrumental music.
Though rooted in its time, the repertoire remains deeply expressive—infused with poetry, myth and spaciousness, allowing the music to unfold with striking intimacy. Performing these works on the modern guitar offers an opportunity to reimagine their colour and resonance while bringing this extraordinary and still little-heard repertoire to wider audiences.
Malvina Guitar Duo
The Malvina Guitar Duo—Adam Brown and Stewart Kelly—draws inspiration from the bardic traditions of Scotland and the mythical figure of Malvina in the Ossian poetry. Our work explores the expressive range of the guitar through programmes that combine new commissions with lesser-known historical repertoire.
By placing musical traditions from Scotland, Cuba and India in dialogue with one another, we aim to create connections between places, histories and sound worlds while exploring the guitar’s enduring role in shaping musical identity and community.
Duo Concertata
Duo Concertata brings together violinist Shlomy Dobrinsky and guitarist Adam Brown in performances exploring colour, lyricism and musical dialogue across a wide range of repertoire. Their programmes move between the elegance of the Italian Baroque, the expressive intensity of the Romantic tradition and the rhythmic vitality of Spain.
The intimacy of the violin and guitar pairing allows subtle shifts of colour, resonance and phrasing to emerge with unusual clarity, creating listening experiences shaped equally by chamber sensitivity and virtuoso energy.
New Music
I am deeply committed to championing new music through performances, collaborations and recordings centred around contemporary and rarely recorded repertoire. These projects include premiere recordings, collaborations with living composers and performances of works exploring new expressive and sonic possibilities for the guitar.
Current research focuses particularly on works by major British composers including Sally Beamish, Edward McGuire, Thomas Wilson, Michael Berkeley and John Maxwell Geddes, alongside contemporary works shaped by jazz, song and improvisatory traditions.
Classical Guitar Scotland: Artist Sessions
Conversations with guitarists, composers, luthiers and teachers
Artist Sessions is an ongoing series of in-depth conversations with guitarists, composers, luthiers and teachers created by Stewart Kelly and Adam Brown. What began as a shared curiosity about the people shaping the guitar world gradually evolved into a wider exploration of creativity, repertoire, craftsmanship and musical identity.
Each conversation offers an intimate perspective on the artistic processes that shape performance, teaching, composition and instrument making, revealing the richness and diversity of the guitar community across generations and traditions.
Listening Collections
Curated listening spaces exploring repertoire, musical ideas and expressive traditions across the guitar’s diverse sound world.
Dance and Character Pieces for Guitar
This playlist brings together a range of dance-inspired and characterful works for the guitar, drawing on musical traditions from Latin America and Europe. Rooted in rhythm, gesture, and movement, these pieces reflect the guitar’s close connection to popular and folk idioms, while also revealing the guitar’s expressive and virtuosic range.
From the energy of the milonga and waltz to more reflective, song-like miniatures, this repertoire highlights a rich variety of styles and influences. Each work captures a distinct musical character, revealing the guitar’s ability to evoke both intimacy and vitality within a single programme.
Variations and Reflections
A collection of guitar works exploring variation form and reflective musical ideas. From reimagined historical themes to more introspective pieces, this repertoire highlights transformation, structure and expressive depth.
Neo-Romantic Guitar Works
A collection of lyrical and expressive guitar works rooted in Romantic tradition. Spanning diverse musical voices from Spain and Latin America, these pieces explore song-like melody, harmonic warmth and the guitar’s remarkable capacity for colour and emotional intimacy.
Guitar Chamber Works
Chamber works for guitar duo exploring dialogue, resonance and close musical interplay. Spanning repertoire from the nineteenth century to the present day, these performances move between original works and reimagined transcriptions, revealing the guitar’s expressive richness within shared musical space.