Master guitarist David Yard has been interested in the guitar since the age of nine. It was his good fortune to grow up in a musical family; his mother, a violist, and his father, a great patron of classical music. David’s early years in Ann Arbor Michigan were a great inspiration , he was able to hear soloists and ensemble groups of all sizes perform. In the late sixties as a teenager, David heard Andres Segovia perform and his life soon began to revolve around the guitar.
His studies took him from the University of Michigan to the Guitar Dept. of Eastern Michigan University, where as a performance major in classical guitar, he began his formal studies. At the same time he studied jazz guitar with Johonny Smith and also studied privately with jazz guitarist Bruce Dunlap.
In 1978 David became a staff member of the Clarkston Conservatory of Music as a guitar instructor while enrolled as a double major in classical and jazz guitar at Oakland University. In 1980 David moved to Tempe, Arizona, to study classical guitar at Arizona State University with Frank Koonce, whose mutual interest in Baroque music fulfilled David’s educational interests.
David has resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1984, where he leads a quiet life studying, performing, and teaching classical and jazz guitar.