Canadian Dale Kavanagh is one of the guitar world’s most gifted interpreters. Performing internationally with “overwhelming technique, powerful sound, and fantastic musicality” (Klassik Heute) she has given recitals as a soloist and with Amadeus Guitar Duo in more than 70 countries. With more than 1700 concerts, including appearances at guitar and music festivals in Canada, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Greece, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Hungary, England, Argentina, Mexico, China and the United States she has become known as “a powerful and agile guitarist making the soul of the instrument sound.” (Fono-Forum)
Kavanagh is an acclaimed composer whose works are played on stages the world over. She has written works for Aniello Desiderio, Zoran Dukic, Costas Cotsiolis, Iliana Matos, ChromaDuo, Emma Rush, and Jorge Caballero, among many others. In 2022, she was commissioned to write three set pieces for the Marlow International Youth Competition. Her works are published by Productions D’Oz, Chanterelle, Edition Margaux, and Hubertus Nogatz Verlag.
Top composers are eager to have Dale Kavanagh play their works and Roland Dyens, Carlo Domeniconi, Jaime M. Zenamon, Stephen Dodgson and many more have dedicated works to her.
As a recording artist, Kavanagh is unstoppable with 20 cds in her catalogue “played with brilliant sound and astonishing technique.” (Der Spiegel) She has been a Naxos artist since 2004, and in 2021 the label released the much-anticipated Kavanagh plays Kavanagh.
Following her initial studies in Halifax, Toronto, and Banff and Basel, between 1986-88 Kavanagh was a top prize-winner in Spain’s Segovia Competition, Italy’s Gargnano Competition, Switzerland’s Neuchatel Competition, and First and Special Prize winner in the Scandinavian International Guitar Competition in Finland. She was Professor of Guitar at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold in Germany from 1999-2022 and Musician in Residence at Acadia University in her hometown of Wolfville, Nova Scotia from 2003-10. She is the founder of the Iserlohn Guitar Symposium, one of the biggest guitar festivals in the world.
