JUAN MARTIN

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 Martin learned his art in the land of its origin, Andalucia in southern Spain where he still has a home in Malaga. He is "The leading flamenco guitarist of his generation" according to the Guardian.

He has recorded 20 albums, mostly as a composer, including The Andalucian Suites and Serenade with the Royal Philharmonic. "In Martin's hands flamenco is not so much a musical style as an entire culture compressed into a quivering box of air". The Guardian, UK. His appearance with his Flamenco Dance Ensemble was filmed live at the Barbican for DVD in 2010.

He performs with a highly distinctive compositional style formed from his early years in Malaga and developed through wide experience in Madrid. At 17 he featured in the film `Donde tu estes' filmed in the Malaga area. Further experience and polish came through recordings and live performances with artists of the caliber of Miles Davis and the Nash Ensemble. He was greatly honoured to be asked to play for Picasso's 90th birthday celebrations on which he based his album Picasso Portraits and his music was used as part of the Guernica exhibition.

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'. He has performed at major International Arts Festivals including Edinburgh, Ludwigsburg, Montreux Jazz and with Herbie Hancock, Istanbul and Hong Kong as well as at leading halls worldwide from Shanghai to Sydney and San Francisco. He has broadcast on many tv channels from the BBC to Spanish RTE and German ZDF television and in the US for CNN.

His teaching books are assiduously studied from Beijing to San Francisco. In February 2014 the first of a new series called "The Essential Flamenco Guitar" was published.