Born in Philadelphia in 1954, guitarist Eliot Fisk earned his B.A. (1976) and M.M.A. (1977) from Yale, where he studied with harpsichordists Ralph Kirkpatrick and Albert Fuller and, shortly after graduation, founded the guitar department. His guitar teachers included Oscar Ghiglia, Alivio Diaz, and Andrés Segovia, who coached him privately for several years. He made his solo debut at Alice Tully Hall in New York in 1976, and in 1980 he won the International Classsical Guitar Competition in Gargnano, Italy.

Fisk has collaborated frequently with such colleagues as flutist Paula Robison, violinist Ruggiero Ricci, the Juilliard String Quartet, and jazz and flamenco guitarists Joe Pass and Paco Peña. He has premiered works by composers Robert Beaser, Nicholas Maw, George Rochberg, and Luciano Berio, who composed his solo Sequenza XI for the guitarist in 1987–88 and the version with chamber orchestra, Chemin V, in 1992. Fisk has further enriched the guitar repertoire with transcriptions of works by composers ranging from Bach and Domenico Scarlatti to Paganini (Fisk was the first guitarist to record the 24 Caprices), Mendelssohn, Albeniz, and Falla. In 1996, Segovia’s widow granted him first performance and recording rights to a collection of her late husband’s own compositions. In addition to his performing and recording career, Fisk has taught since 1989 at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and is also on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston.