Steven Mackey

A guitarist himself, Steven Mackey is one of the few composers to write for the electric guitar in a classical context. He is also a noted educator. Mackey was born to American parents in Frankfurt, West Germany, on February 14, 1956. As a teen, he played rock guitar, and rock and blues continued to influence his music later on, but when he was 19, he heard the String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, of Beethoven on a car radio, specifically the unusual unison E flat in the second movement, and at that moment, he decided to become a composer. Mackey attended the University...