After releasing his debut album Guitar Delights in 2023, featuring Romanian repertoire pieces, and two years later a CD with sonatas by Paganini, recorded alongside the violinistAlexandru Tomescu, the incredible guitaristDragoș Ilie returns with a new recording: on the 10^th of April he released at the Naxos label featuring sonatas by Wenzel Thomas Matiegka, performed with refined nuances and admirable technique.

This album is the first in a series that Dragoș Ilie is dedicating to the Complete Sonatas for Solo Guitar by Thoams Matiegka, a collection for which the Romanian musician was honored to collaborate with the legendary guitaristNorbert Kraft. The Canadian artist served as a producer for the album, which was recorded in January, 2025 at St.Paul's Anglican Church in Newmarket, Ontario.

Dragoș Ilie studied at Iasi and in the United States of America, earning a Doctor in Music degree at the University of Texas, Austin, where he was also an assistant professor; he also received the Woodruff Scholarship to study at the Schwob School of Music, at the Columbus State University. Laureate of the "Heirs of Musical Romania" Scholarship awarded in 2021 by Radio RomâniaMuzical, the artist made his debut on the stage of the Radio Hall that same year alongside the National Radio Orchestra and has an extensive concert career in Europe, Asia and North America. He has won over 40 awards at prestigious national and international competitions, including the Guitar Foundations of America, the Koblenz Guitar Festival or the Tokyo International Guitar Competition. He is also active in the field of chamber music as a member of the Austin Guitar Quartet and has performed a series of recitals alongside the renowned violinistAlexandru Tomescu. Currently, guitaristDragoș Ilie is a professor at the "George Enescu" University of Arts in Iasi and in parallel, is involved in successful recording projects, such as the one dedicated to the solo guitar sonatas composed by Thomas Matiegka.

Dragoș Ilie spoke to us about this album:

"First of all, the project came about when I was introduced to Norbert Kraft, the legendary audio engineer who produced all the classical guitar records for Naxos Records. My professor, back when I was studying in Austin, Texas, was actually the very first guitarist to record for Naxos, and at that time, I was very passionate about the works of Thomas Matiegka, a composer whom few play. My teacher, seeing that I really liked it and that I was able to connect with the spirit of that music, recommended me to Norbert Kraft, asking if he would be interested in working together. He said yes on the spot, and the rest is history. I just finished recording my second album this year.

It was very interesting, it was a humbling experience. First of all, we recorded in an Anglican Church that also serves as a Romanian Orthodox Church, so it was kind of funny, thousands of kilometers away from Romania, here in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. It was the first recording. It happened last January. It was terribly cold and I had to concentrate intensely to keep my strength up but Norbert Kraft has such vast experience, he was like a wall to me, because recording is very different from performing on stage or in a concert or recital. A lot of negative thoughts come up; there's this pressure to play everything perfectly because it's being recorded on a disc for eternity, but working with someone like Norbert, who has so much experience and is a very calm person, helped me enormously because he always brought me back to a realm of simplicity and reality, and we focused of the music and phrasing. I think it also helped that I had the opportunity to record a second album with him, because I believe that on the second album we connected even better, having already had that previous experience."

What can you tell us about Thomas Matiegka, who is a less-known composer today?

"Matiegka was a composer born in Bohemia, roughly in what is now the Czech Republic, who moved to Vienna, the capital of guitar music, where he taught guitar alongside the greatest guitar players of all time. We're talking about the early 19^th century, specifically the first two decades. It's very interesting that, of all the guitar composers of that era, Matiegka seems to have loved the sonata form; he wrote the most sonatas for guitar, 210. He has a very interesting style because, unlike most of the virtuoso guitar players in the 19^th century, who tried more or less to copy, to bring, in fact, the entire scope of the Italian opera to the guitar, talking about a great deal of virtuosity, Matiegka always leans toward the more playful side of the instrument. All of his sonatas actually end not very dramatically, but playfully. He is very interesting composer, a mix of artistic creativity and playfulness; he uses somewhat different techniques, being inspired by folk music of the Tyrol region of Austria. He is a very, very interesting composer and his sonatas develop, a certain compositional evolution, so to speak. There are sonatas, grand sonatas, for instance, on the first album, we recorded two grand sonatas, that is, sonatas in larger concert forms, a sonata that is a tribute to Haydn, which is actually a rearrangement, a reinterpretation of the famous Sonata in B minor and a "progressive" sonata, that's actually the title he gives to that sonata "Progressive", a term quite uncommon at the time. Matiegka is a very, very creative composer for his time.

I first came across Matiegka through my professors. My first ever professor from the United States, Andrew Zone, taught an intensive course on the history of the guitar and actually had us listen to at least on work by every guitar composer, or, at least every guitar composer we were familiar with. And when we got to Thomas Matiegka, a name I hadn't even heard of, I listened to his famous Sonata in B minor, the sonata that was a reinterpretation of Haydn's sonata and I liked it so much that I started playing right away. I remember that I was quite young back then, just starting my undergraduate studies; I struggled a bit with that sonata, but it became one of my signature pieces. I've performed it all over the world, in China, Japan, in competition, in the United States of America, in Europe. It was a piece I carried with me everywhere and it sparked my interest in this composer".

Please, tell us about yourupcoming projects - concerts, teaching activity and recording work.

"This year is going to be a busy one, I'm working with the violin player Alexandru Tomescu and the bandoneon player Omar Massa to prepare the Stradivarius tour, during which we'll perform 20 concerts. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about it, since we haven't officially announced the event yet, but it will be a spectacular tour, and I'm sure the audience will enjoy it, just as they do every year with the successful Stradivarius tour. After this tour, alongside the guitar players Dan Alexandru Arhire and Cosmin Soare, who is the art director of the Khitaralogos in Bucharest, as well, a new guitar quartet, The Romanian Guitar Quartet. We'll perform all over Romania. We will have a tour, if I'm not mistaken, in early August and we will perform Vivaldi's Four Season, arranged for guitar of course, along with four new compositions written for guitar by Romanian composers. A project that will certainly be very interesting both for the audience and for us. As for teaching projects, aside from my ongoing work at the Conservatory of Music in Iași, where I'm preparing my students to become the next generation of brilliant guitar players, I will teach at the Icon Arts Camp this summer in Biertan, which will take place at the end of July. And then I will teach again alongside violinist Alexandru Tomescu. We are holding the fourth edition of the "High Altitude" Masterclass, offering guitar and violin courses at the Caraiman cabin."

Since you were talking about your teaching activity, I would like to ask you, what do you think of the current state of the guitar courses in Romania?

"It is interesting because the classical guitar has a relatively recent history in Romania. We are talking about only three generations of guitar players who learned at the university. On the other hand, I'm very optimistic about the future of the classical Romanian guitar because we have a lot of talented young people. There are a lot of guitar events, as I was saying earlier, and Khitaralogos, which aims to bring world-class artists in our country for young people to interact with. We have masterclasses and guitar festivals. I think the Romanian school guitar is not necessarily far behind the European or American one. Maybe what we lack is an optimistic spirit. That's what I try to cultivate in my relationship with my students and in all the masterclasses that I teach. I can help them discover their own voice and to understand that, yes, indeed, it is possible to build a career out of classical guitar and music. You just have to work hard andwant to build your own career.