Tim Pence is a guitarist, educator, and composer who has performed throughout the U.S. and whose music has been performed around the world. In addition to a recent commission from the Galveston Symphony Orchestra, Big Rocks on Steep Hills – a Collage of Dreams (which premiered to enthusiastic reception at The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, TX) his music has been performed by groups such as The Triton Brass Quintet, The Claine Trio, and The Chagall Performance Arts Collaborative in venues from Boston’s Jordan Hall, to the Lyon Opera House in France. His guitar music has been performed across the U.S. and also in Canada, France, Greece, and Russia by numerous guitarists including Robert P. Sullivan, Socrates Leptos, and the ALC Project whose recording Drifting featured one of Pence’s pieces, The Sleeping Guitar, a piece called by the American Record Guide (Jan/Feb 2022 Edition) “lovely, very welcome.”
In addition to actively performing and composing, Tim Pence has always been in demand as a teacher. Compelled to share music from an early age, he began teaching in local music stores in southern California while still in high school. Then through college and much of the two decades he was based in Boston, he taught extensively throughout the greater Boston area and southern New Hampshire with students regularly winning top honors at the multi-state level and a full studio with a growing wait-list. He has also been a guest lecturer/performer at the collegiate level addressing historical perspectives on the birth of the six-string guitar in the mid-classical era and its relevance today.
A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, he majored in classical guitar performance under the tutelage of David Leisner. During this time, he also studied composition with Lee Hyla, performed in and/or attended numerous master classes with artists including Benjamin Verdery, Jason Vieaux, Ricardo Iznaola, Eliot Fisk, Ali Akbar Khan, Andreas Schiff, and Philip Glass and participated in the 1996 New England Classical Guitar Society Competition winning First Place.