Alan Mearns
Alan Mearns was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He began his musical studies with the classical violin at age five, switching to the guitar at age ten. Moving to the United States in his late teens, he studied classical guitar performance with Douglas James at Appalachian State University (where he held the prestigious Fletcher Scholarship) and with Stanley Yates at Austin Peay State University.
Alan is a multiple-genre guitarist and composer. Alan is both a celebrated classical guitar virtuoso and a gifted songwriter under his folk persona, Yes the Raven. His recent Bach recording, Sei Solo, was met with both critical and popular acclaim, climbing to number 8 in the classical Billboard chart.
As a classical guitarist and composer, he has performed and presented masterclasses and lectures at significant venues in the US and the UK. His forthcoming release, Lorca, deals with his innovative arrangements of Spanish music.
He also has extensive experience as performer-composer in a wide range of non-classical music genres, including contemporary-traditional Irish music and popular Americana alternative-folk music (under the pseudonym Yes The Raven), along with extensive experience as studio musician, arranger, and producer. Among his 12 CD recordings, he has recorded four solo CDs as songwriter Yes The Raven, two CDs as band-leader with Airspace, a recording of Irish music with The Belfast Boys (with his long-time collaborator, the well-known Irish poet Adrian Rice), and others.
His musical activities as song-writer-performer, composer, and classical guitarist have resulted in numerous magazine and radio coverage (including recent interview performances for NPR Classical, BBC Sounds UK, Radio Ulster, Guitar Salon International Los Angeles), video interviews and podcasts, and a recent video feature by YouTube influencer Rick Beato (which has received almost 500K views).
He also enjoys significant activity as a poet; recently readings of his upcoming collection Into The Fields include the Seamus Heaney Center at Queens University Belfast, among other venues.
“Bach-Godowsky, Bach-Busoni, Bach-Leonhardt. And now, Bach-Mearns, for no transcription of Bach deserves a hyphen more than the guitar transcription presented here.”
– Mark Delpriora (Guitar Chair Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard School)
“Alan Mearns has taken these well-known works where no one else dared before. If you think you have heard Bach on the guitar, think again!”
– René Izquierdo (Cuban virtuoso, Professor of Guitar, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
“…a revelation. Mearns reveals himself a singular artist of extraordinary imagination…truly a next-generation phenomenon.”
– Stephen Aron, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
“Mearns’ virtuosic recording is a thrilling adventure for the hands and ears…reminding us of how exciting the guitar can be as a solo instrument when it suggests something greater than itself.”
– Jonathan Leathwood, University of Denver, Editor Soundboard Scholar.
“F*****g brilliant!”
– Steve Goss, Celebrated Welsh composer whose work has been performed by the major symphony orchestras worldwide andin over 90 albums by more than a dozen record labels (including EMI, Decca, Virgin Classics, Naxos, and Deutsche Grammophon); He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, an honour limited to 300 living people.
“I haven’t been as nicely surprised for many, many years! What an achievement!”
Sergio Assad, legendary virtuoso, composer, Grammy nominee, and multiple Latin-Grammy Award winner
“Alan Mearns is undoubtedly a virtuoso guitarist, yet he is more than that. Alan is a creative soul with a vast imagination and refined musicianship. His transcriptions of Bach are a beautiful glimpse into his reative world.”
– Bill Piburn, editor Fingerstyle Guitar Journal
