My foundation for the various violin concerto recordings was inauspicious but typical. In high school, I began in typical teenage boy fashion emulating the styles of Van Halen and Malmsteen and playing in various high school bands. The same pattern continued in college, but I was fortunate and smart enough to take advantage of guitar lessons with Tim Hayden in Spartanburg, South Carolina, who corrected many of my bad habits. However, it was a shockingly inspiring concert featuring the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Robert McDuffie as soloist and Yehudi Menuin as conductor that laid the path before me. I was absolutely determined to learn the violin, even willing to sacrifice the typical life of a college student. Reality set in after a few years of study with Henry Hampton (Spartanburg, SC) and Luigi Suivini (London, England) that I'd never be able to play at the virtuoso level. Later, the idea struck me: Why not combine the guitar and the violin together? Why try to play some of these pieces that I loved so much on the guitar. I started with the Tchaikovsky D Major concerto, perhaps not the best choice to begin with. After a few years of dabbling, I finally recorded the piece in 2000. I followed up with the Bruch g minor in 2001 and the Glazunov a minor in 2003.