Edward Martin

Edward Martin (renaissance and baroque lute and vihuela) has studied with Donna Curry, Toyohiko Satoh, and Hopkinson Smith. His musical education started at age 5 when he took up the guitar. He held the position of Adjunct Professor of Lute at the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota from 1984 to 2016. In 1984, Martin played in the First International Lute Competition in Toronto. Besides extensively performing throughout the United States, he has made recordings for Minnesota Public Radio, which have been broadcast on the American Public Radio network. Internationally, Martin has performed in Spain, Scotland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. He has been a member of various ensembles, including the Minnesota Lute Quartet and the Chambure Vihuela Quartet, and regularly performs duos with tenor William Bastian and lutenists Paul Berget, Phil Rukavina (in Duo Chambure), and Thomas Walker. In the summers of 1997 and 2001 Martin served as the Renaissance lute instructor at the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Renaissance week at the Dominican College, in San Rafael, California. He has frequently been a guest lecturer, teacher, and performer at the biannual summer seminar of the Lute Society of America and was a member of its Board of Directors for twelve years.

Recently, he has studied the canon of Johannes Fresneau, following the recently discovery of this first and only extant music for the Dutch baroque lute.  He toured the Netherlands and Belgium, giving solo performances of Fresneau’s works in Antwerp, Brussels, and Leiden, Fresneau’s place of residence.  He just completed the first CD recording of these works, and it is to be released in 2020 on the Gamut Music label. 

Edward Martin is widely known for his recordings on the Magnatune and Gamut Music labels, and he has received critical acclaim for his recordings, including a 5-star rating for “Courante” (Gamut Music) in Early Music Today.  He also authored the program notes for a recording of music by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, performed by Eduardo Egüez, which won the prestigious “Grand Prix du Disque” award in 2011.