LLUIS GOMEZ
At an early age and largely encouraged by the musical atmosphere in his family, Lluis Gomez started self-teaching himself the guitar and the electric bass. He went on to study classical guitar at the age of 15, with Pere Payes and Elisabeth Roma in Premia de Mar, and subsequently took up the electric guitar with Josep Traver. He also studied modern harmony with Ramon Montoliu at Badalona's Municipal School of Music (EMMB).
The discovery of bluegrass through the Banjo Paris Session album was a watershed in his career. He was so taken by this style that he immediately picked up the five string banjo and took lessons from Sedo Garcia and Ricky Araiza in Barcelona. He then traveled to France, Ireland, the UK and the US to take lessons from Jean Marie Redon, Bill Keith, Tony Trischka, Pete Wernick, Noam Pikelny, and Jayme Stone among others. He has performed and recorded extensively since then and has recorded the music for several films and theatre plays.
Widely acknowledged as a performer both at home and abroad (he has recorded two CDs with his very own tracks), Lluis Gomez is one of the great connoisseurs of bluegrass music in Spain. He has written several methods to learn how to play the five-string banjo, including a Spanish-Catalan bilingual book written in collaboration with Toni Gimenez. He writes regularly for several specialized magazines and in March 2015 he was the front cover feature of the prestigious Banjo Newsletter magazine.
He runs the "Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival Al Ras" as well as the "Barcelona Bluegrass Camp", and also teaches abroad at the prestigious Virton campus in Belgium, the "International Stage Musique Acoustique". He currently teaches banjo at different schools and plays in several bluegrass, folk, country and jazz manouche bands, hosts a bluegrass session in Barcelona, and is also a regular contributor to different media.