LONDON UNION CHAPEL

TUE 9TH SEP, 2008 7.00pm

A celebrated virtuoso of the flamenco guitar who has been voted into the top three guitarists in the world by US magazine ‘Guitar Player’, Juan Martín is a native of Andalucía, where he still has a home in Málaga. He spends much time touring as well as in London where he has formed his own international company for the promotion of high quality flamenco coming direct from Andalucía. He has recorded 18 albums, mostly as a composer and has several DVDs distributed by Warner Brothers and Mel Bay. His original method book ‘El Arte Flamenco de la Guitarra’ is in its eighth print and has opened the complex art of the flamenco guitar to the whole world and is assiduously studied from Moscow to Beijing to San Francisco and back to Spain. It is now considered to be the ‘bible’ of flamenco guitar.He performs with a highly distinctive compositional style formed from his early years in Málaga and developed through wide experience in Madrid, including direct contact with Paco de Lucía. Further experience and polish came through recordings with the Royal Philharmonic and live performances with artists of the calibre of Miles Davis. The Spanish paper ‘El Mundo’ said of him ‘he has a terrifyingly good technique and an absolute dominance of the guitar, filling the concert hall with crystalline clarity.’