Gabriel Bianco, winner of the XXVIII Andrs Segovia International Guitar Competition will perform in the next International

Festival of Music and Dance of Granada, on the 24th of June in la La Casa de los Pisa at 8.30 p.m. Although in previous editions of the International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada other guitarists who have competed in the Andrs Segovia guitar competition, such as M Esther Guzmn, have performed due to their high qualification score, Gabriel Bianco is the first guitarist who is to take part in Granadas Festival as a result of winning the Andrs Segovia competition. For the first time, Gabriel Biancos recital will be included in Granadas Festival. Born in Paris in 1988 into a family of musicians, Gabriel Bianco started playing the guitar when he was just five years old. A few years later he began his studies in Paris with Ramn de Herrera at the Conservatoire National de Rgion, and concluded his instruction at the Conservatoire Suprieur de Paris in 2008, where he received the highest performance distinction under the teaching of Olivier Chassain. Mr. Bianco will perform in the Festival of Granada not onlyas a result of winning first prize at Andrs Segovia, but also for winning eight prizes in other international competitions in Europe including in Vienna (Austria), Tychy (Poland), and Koblenz (Germany), as well as the Guitar Foundation of America Competition (GFA). He has performed as a solo artist in recitals on main stages all around the world (Moscow, Beijing, Bucharest, So Paulo, Poznan, etc.) For the Festival of Music and Dance, Mr. Bianco has chosen an attractive and varied program which will include, Fantasa que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico, the tenth fantasy of the first of the Tres libros de msica en cifra para vihuela, published in Seville in 1546 by Alonso Mudarra (c. 1510-1580). (Mudarra belonged to the Golden Age of Spanish music in the sixteenth century, and together with the vihuelists Luis de Miln, Enrque de Valderrbano, Esteban Daza, Diego Pisador, Miguel de Fuenllana and Luis de Narvaz from Granada, they contributed to the birth and proliferation of instrumental music.) This piece of music pays homage to the vihuela, a precursor of the guitar. The vihuela and the guitar are representative of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, respectively. From the sixteenth century, Mr. Bianco will then transport the Festival audience to the romantic virtuosity of the nineteenth century, with the renowned piece, Fantaisie dramatique, op. 31, with its two parts Le Dpart and Le Retour, composed by the French guitarist Napolen Coste (1805-1883). Coste, a disciple of our Fernando Sor, edited and republished, after Sor passed away, Sors original method for guitar, Mthode Complte pour la Guitarre. Le Dpart was composed in 1856, the same year in which Coste took part in the guitar contest sponsored by the Russian aristocrat, Nicolai Makaroff, where he placed 2nd among the 31 composer-contestants. After interpreting Coste, Mr. Bianco will then run the clock back to the difficult yet beautiful, Sonata BWV 998 by J. S. Bach (1685-1750). This piece, with its three movements Praeludium, Fuge, and Allegro, is one of the six pieces for the lute (3 suites, this sonata, a prelude and a fugue) designated with the numbers 995 to 1000 from the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (catalog in German with Bachs pieces, known as BWV).

The recital will conclude with the virtuoso Grande Sonate pour guitarre in A major composed by the famous Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer, Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), with its three movements, Allegro risoluto, Romanze, and Andantino Variato. Both the first and the last movements are especially risky due to the complexity of the required techniques, which are characteristic of the inspiration and virtuosity great, though eccentric, violinist and guitarist.