Gregory Doc Rossi

Gregory Doc Rossi is a citternist, composer and scholar born in Dayton, Ohio in 1955, emigrating to Europe in 1984. Today, he lives In Alsace after spending some years in Corsica. He studied music from an early age and began performing at 14. He has B.A.s in Music and English Literature, and was awarded the Ph.D. in 1991 from the University of London, where he wrote on Shakespeare and Brecht under the supervision of Rene Weis and Keith Walker. He studied guitar with Andrea Damiani and has had tuition from John Renbourn, Ugo Orlandi, Richard Strasser, Christopher Morrongiello, Ljubo Majstorovic and John Anthony Lennon.

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Rossi has had a lifelong interest in the cittern, having built one at the age of 13. He now performs on a variety of instruments, including the diatonic Renaissance cittern, the modern Irish cittern, and especially the so-called English guitar or cetra, an 18th-century instrument. He also plays guitar, bass guitar, tenor banjo, mandolin and mandola.

His recordings include Six Sonatas for Cetra or Kitara by Pasqualini Demarzi with Andrea Damiani, and La Cetra Galant, a CD of solos and duets. His publications include The Celtic Cittern and The Celtic Guitar for Centerstream/Hal Leonard; The Compleat Cittern, a tutor for 18th-century cittern (with transcriptions for guitar and other six-course instruments), the English translation of Andrea Damiani’s Tutor for Renaissance Lute, a modern edition of Thomas Robinson’s cittern music including New Citharen Lessons (1609) and pieces from manuscript sources, and The Original Guitar Styles of Jerry Donahue. He has published articles dealing with guitar and cittern history, Shakespeare and Brecht, Scott Fitzgerald, and the Beat Generation.

Gregory Doc Rossi is a founder of The Cittern Society.

In 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011, Rossi conducted lectures on different playing techniques at the Waldzither-conference at Suhl in Thuringia, Germany, where he was invited as a specialist to revive the German cittern.