Margaret Slovak

Margaret Slovak has played guitar with evident skill since the closing years of the 1980s, yet her first recording did not appear until 1998, when she issued the reflective collection of solo performances titled Undying Hope. She took up the instrument at twelve and was already performing professionally by sixteen. Her studies encompassed jazz, classical repertoire, and visual art, culminating in a 1986 degree from Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts. Additional training followed at the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Missouri Conservatory of Music, where her mentors included Ralph Towner, John Abercrombie, and Kenny Wheeler. After two years based in Denver, she relocated to New York for the period 1988–93, appearing regularly in neighborhood clubs and directing her own ensemble alongside such players as Fred Hersch, Michael Formanek, and Art Lande. In 1994 she settled in Portland, Oregon, and that autumn of 1996 she undertook a tour of Germany and the Czech Republic while maintaining a steady schedule of regional engagements across the Pacific Northwest. Beyond her concert work, Slovak instructs guitar students at both collegiate institutions and in private settings and maintains an active practice as a painter.