Boyd Meets Girl, the engaging and dynamic husband and wife duo of Australian guitarist Rupert Boyd and American cellist Laura Metcalf, brings their eclectic, genre-defying mix of musical styles to the Sedona stage.
Rupert Boyd, guitar
“Remember the name Rupert Boyd. While there may never be another classical guitarist like Segovia, this young Australian left his audience with the impression that someday there may not be the likes of him again, either.” – The Washington Post
At the age of 22, Australian classical guitarist Rupert Boyd left Australia for the first time, bound or New York City with just a suitcase and a guitar, and not knowing a single person in North America. He has subsequently become regarded as one of the finest guitarists of his generation, having been described by Gramophone as “a very fine musician” and by The Washington Post as “truly evocative”, and has performed across four continents, from New York’s Carnegie Hall, to festivals in Europe, China, India, Nepal, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia.
Recent concert highlights include performances for the Moab Music Festival, Newport Music Festival, Caramoor, Strathmore, Festival Napa Valley, the Austin and Cleveland Classical Guitar Societies, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was also recently named New Artist of the Month in Musical America for his work as a performer and curator.
Active as both a soloist and chamber musician, Rupert Boyd regularly performs throughout the world in Boyd Meets Girl, with cellist Laura Metcalf, and the Australian Guitar Duo with guitarist Jacob Cordover. Boyd Meets Girl’s debut album reached #3 on the Billboard charts, has to date received over 4 million streams on Spotify, and garnered the following review in Gramophone Magazine: “they play like one, with a harmony of purpose as sure as their intonation.” Their follow-up album, Songs of Love & Despair, released in 2022 was also praised by Gramophone as “beguiling… fascinating… enchanting”. In 2024, Boyd Meets Girl gave the world premiere performances of ANAHATA, a cello and guitar double concerto composed by the Grammy-nominated Clarice Assad, and commissioned for the duo by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. The Australian Guitar Duo’s debut album Songs from the Forest was described as “wonderfully entertaining” by Classical Guitar Magazine.
Rupert Boyd also has three solo albums, with his most recent, The Guitar, being described as “an utterly exceptional recording” by Classical Guitar Magazine, and “a must-have album of 2019” by This Is Classical Guitar. Fantasías was selected by American Record Guide as “Critic’s Choice” of 2016, and Soundboard described the eponymous work on Boyd’s debut recording Valses Poéticos as “one of the best recorded performances of this work on guitar.” Rupert Boyd also recorded music for an episode of the wildly popular podcast Radiolab.
Rupert Boyd holds a Bachelor of Music (First Class Honours) from the Australian National University School of Music, a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music and an Artist Diploma from the Yale University School of Music. His major teachers have been Timothy Kain, David Leisner and Benjamin Verdery. In addition to winning the Andrés Segovia award from the Manhattan School of Music, Rupert Boyd was also a winner of the Lillian Fuchs Chamber Music Competition and winner of the Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition.
Rupert Boyd exclusively plays on D’Addario Strings, and lives in New York City, where he is coartistic director of GatherNYC, a revolutionary Sunday morning concert series at the Museum of Arts and Design.
www.rupertboyd.com
Laura Metcalf, cello
Cellist Laura Metcalf, renowned worldwide as a passionate solo and chamber musician, has been acclaimed for her “brilliant” playing (Gramophone Magazine) and described as “a cellist whose passion for music is as evident as her artistry and talent” (I care if you listen). She has performed throughout the US and on six continents, including South Africa, Nepal, Argentina, Qatar, Mongolia, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, and Australia. Laura’s debut solo album on the Grammy-winning label Sono Luminus reached #7 on the Billboard Charts, and was called “a way forward for classical music” by AllMusic. As a sought-after chamber musician and collaborator, Laura is drawn to projects that push boundaries and expand the definition of classical chamber music.
Boyd Meets Girl, her duo with her husband, classical guitarist Rupert Boyd, tours worldwide including appearances at Caramoor, Festival Napa Valley, the Morgan Library, Moab Music Festival, Newport Classical and many more, has reached #3 on the Billboard Chart, has had their music streamed over 3 million times on Spotify alone, and will premiere a double concerto written for them by Clarice Assad in 2024. Laura also performs regularly with the popular cello-percussion quartet Break of Reality, selected for an ongoing world tour as musical ambassadors of the US State Department.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Laura became the founding cellist of The Overlook, a string quartet dedicated towards building a more representative musical tradition, which has already been presented by the Kaufman Center, Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has appeared as a guest with such renowned ensembles as Eighth Blackbird (with whom she premiered a concerto for sextet and orchestra with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra), The Knights, ETHEL and more, and appears regularly as principal cellist of the IRIS Collective in Memphis, TN. As the cellist of string quintet Sybarite5 from 2008-2021, the first-ever string quintet to win the Concert Artists Guild competition and reach #1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, she toured extensively, performing in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Library of Congress, and countless other major venues.
Laura is also a concert curator and artistic director, having co-founded the weekly Sunday morning concert series GatherNYC and the Unfiltered Music Festival at Fotografiska New York, as well as guest curating for the Museum of Arts and Design and Wave Hill. She has appeared onstage with artists including Adele, John Legend, Cher, Shawn Mendes and Nas. As a devoted educator, Laura has given masterclasses and workshops at Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory and countless others, and holds a cello faculty position at Riverdale Country School. Laura lives in New York City with her husband and young son Milo.
