1983: John Mackenzie, Andrew Forrest, David Ashworth and David Scarth formed the York Guitar Quartet, initially using three standard (tenor) guitars and one acoustic 4-string bass guitar to explore their mutual enjoyment of guitar music.

1986: We made our first recording, 'York Guitar Quartet', featuring music by Bach, Corrette, Carulli, Walton and Vaughan Williams.
1990: Augmented the existing instruments with requinto guitars, tuned a fourth higher than standard, giving the Quartet an extended range and wider tonal palette.
1992: Commisioned a new bass guitar of original design from luthier Dave Gregory, with six strings and tone closer to the classical guitar. Our preferred combination of instruments ever since has been one requinto, two tenors and bass though, where it is more fitting, two requintos, tenor and bass or, less frequently, three tenors and bass.
1997: Our second recording, 'On the Overgrown Path', featuring music by Janacek, Bartok and Stravinsky released on CD.
2005: Founder member David Ashworth left York and the Quartet. David made many great contributions to the development of the quartet in performance, repertoire and organisation. We wish him well in his future musical endeavours.
2006: New member Mark Currey joined the quartet. The yorkguitarquartet.com website created.
2010: Third Recording, 'Elegy' released featuring new original repertoire for guitar quartet written by members of the quartet and associates.


2018: Fourth Recording, 'Landscape with Trees' with many works of female composers.