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Maria de la Paz returned to tango after leaving Argentina. For the past ten years, she has regularly traveled between her two horizons: the childhood of the New World and her life as a musician in old Europe. In Switzerland, she met Alexandre Cellier, a passionate explorer of world music and musical encounters. Her instrument of choice is the piano, but the musical journey continues with unusual instruments such as the Hang and the Fujara, and surprising improvisations may emerge from instruments built on stage or from everyday objects—borrowed from her garden or a household that suddenly becomes enchanted.
Scottish-Indian guitarist Samrat Majumder is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University under Manuel Barrueco. In May 2025, he was named the inaugural Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) 40th Anniversary Artist at Wigmore Hall, also becoming a joint YCAT–Concert Artists Guild Artist for 2025. During the 2025/26 season, Samrat will perform across the UK, including his Wigmore Hall debut and a concerto appearance with the de Havilland Orchestra. A multiple prize winner, he has earned first prizes at the Concours International de Guitare d’Antony (2025, also Audience Prize), Deutscher Gitarrenpreis, International Martinez Guitar Competition Iserlohn, and LIGITA International Guitar Competition in 2024. He is a D’Addario Artist, Classical Guitar Ambassador for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and founder of a mentorship programme for young Indian guitarists.
Pablo Sáinz Villegas, born in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain, on June 16, 1977, is a distinguished classical guitarist acclaimed as “the soul of the Spanish guitar” by The New York Times. Since his debut with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, he has performed in over 40 countries with renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Orchestra of Spain. His performances have graced prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Notably, he is the first guitarist in 38 years to perform at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko.
Sáinz Villegas has collaborated with esteemed artists like Plácido Domingo, recording a duo album and participating in a tribute concert at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. He has also performed on a floating stage on the Amazon River, broadcast to millions worldwide. His discography includes recordings with the National Orchestra of Spain and the album “Americano” under Harmonia Mundi. Currently, he is an exclusive artist with Sony Classical.
A passionate advocate for Spanish classical guitar, Sáinz Villegas has premiered works by composers such as John Williams, Tomás Marco, David del Puerto, and Sergio Assad. He has received over 30 international awards, including the Andrés Segovia, Francisco Tárrega, and Christopher Parkening Prizes. In 2006, he founded the philanthropic project “The Legacy of Music Without Borders,” bringing music to over 32,000 children and youth in Spain, Mexico, and the United States.
Residing in New York City since 2001, Sáinz Villegas continues to inspire audiences worldwide with his expressive performances and dedication to cultural exchange through music.
Hailed as the new face of classical guitar worldwide, Raphaël Feuillâtre fascinates audiences and critics alike with the depth of his interpretations, his dazzling virtuosity, and the richness of his repertoire.
Winner of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America competition in 2018 (USA) and ADAMI’s “Classical Revelation 2021”, Raphaël was chosen as an exclusive artist by the label Deutsche Grammophon in 2022. He is, to date, one of the very few guitarists to have signed with this legendary label. This fruitful collaboration gave birth to his debut album “Visages Baroques” in 2023, which displays different facets of the Baroque aesthetic. His second album, Spanish Serenades, features masterpieces from the Spanish repertoire, including works by Albéniz, Granados, Llobet, Rodrigo, and Tárrega. It includes one of Granados’s Danzas españolas with violinist María
Dueñas, as well as the legendary Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo, recorded with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Gábor Takács-Nagy.
Following his acclaimed debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2023, he has performed in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals – including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the “Folle Journée” in Nantes, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Beethoven Haus in Bonn – as well as at major guitar events such as the Festival International de Guitare de Paris, the Festival Guitarras del Mundo in Argentina, the Changsha International Guitar Festival in China.
His passion for chamber music and his desire to champion his instrument in this repertoire has led him to collaborate with musicians of the highest calibre: recorder player Lucie Horsch, trumpet player Lucienne Renaudin Vary and violinist Maria Dueñas in venues such as Deutsche Grammophon’s Yellow Lounge, the Dresden Music Festival, Schleswig Holstein Festival, Cité de la Musique de Paris, and the Società del Quartotto Di Milano – Scala G. Verdi.
Born in Djibouti in 1996, Raphaël was introduced to the guitar by his first teacher, Hacène Addadi, before joining Michel Grizard’s class at the Conservatoire de Nantes in 2012. Three years later, he entered the Conservatoire National de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the classes of Roland Dyens and Tristan Manoukian.
In addition to winning first prize at the GFA, Raphaël has forged a strong reputation in the classical guitar world by winning the following competitions: Jose Tomas International Guitar Competition in Villa Petrer (Spain – 2017), Kutna Hora International Guitar Festival (Czech Republic – 2017), Viseu International Spring Music Festival (Portugal – 2016), Fontenay-sous-Bois Guitar Competition & Festival (France – 2015), and Ciudad de Coria International Guitar Festival (Spain – 2014).
An ambassador for the guitar and keen to contribute to the development of its repertoire, Raphaël has arranged numerous works from the repertoire of instruments he loves – with a particular predilection for keyboard instruments such as the piano and harpsichord – a taste particularly reflected in his choice of programmes for his recordings.
Driven by a desire to pass on his passion for music and the guitar, Raphaël teaches at the Pôle Supérieur – Bretagne and is co-founder of the Lille Guitar Academy, a summer academy for guitarists. Students from all over the world receive his guidance at masterclasses given at the San Francisco Conservatory, the Manhattan School in New York and the Haute École de Musique in Geneva. He is also involved in projects to raise awareness of the arts, particularly following a tour in the USA during which he took part in several activities in schools and prisons.
Raphaël Feuillâtre is supported by Savarez, a historic string-manufacturing company founded in 1770, and plays a guitar by Australian luthier Greg Smallman.
Born 1952 in Israel. Gil played piano as a child. In 1963 he started taking guitar lessons with Menashe Bakish, one of Israel’s foremost classical guitar masters. In 1974, Following 3 years of mandatory service in the IDF central command entertainment unit, Gil married Neta Adan* and together they moved to the US, where he studied at the Berklee College in Boston and later in Queens College in NY.
Upon returning to Israel in 1981, Gil established himself as a professional session guitarist as well as an arranger/composer. He recorded and played with leading artists including: Shalom Chanoch – (white wedding), Gidi Gov -(40:06), Chava Alberstein – (“Voices” & “Stardust”) Arik Einstein – (“Made in Israel”).During the years 1983 & 1984 he taught jazz improvisation and guitar at the “Jerusalem Academy of Music”.
In 1985 Gil co-founded the “Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music” in Ramat Hasharon and was its academic director. He developed and wrote many core curriculum as well as advanced courses. Gil co-founded the school’s “computer aided music” program.
During the next five-year period he performed in jazz festivals heading different original projects and collaborating with various artists including Al Dimeola on his 88-89 European tours.
In 1990 Gil started an artistic collaboration, accompanying, arranging, producing and co-writing with Achinoam Nini AKA Noa. For the last three decades their partnership have been performing creating and touring internationally.
Germain Umdenstock is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who currently performs with Nicolas Fraissinet and the group Elynn The Green.
Since 1996 Umdenstock has performed on stages such as Les Trois Baudets (Paris), le Flow (Paris), l’Auguste théâtre (Paris), Metro Al Madina (Beirut), Teatro Nacional Rubén Darío (Managua, Nicaragua), Teatro del Arte (San Salvador, El Salvador), Museo del Jade (San Jose, Costa Rica), Le festival Rockailles (Reignier), Maison du Peuple (Ouagadougou), Salle Métropole, D-Club, Festival de la Cité, Festi’Neuch, Venoge Festival, Casino-théâtre (Geneva), Théâtre du Passage (Neuchâtel), opening for artists including Placebo, Keziah Jones, Michel Bühler, Anthony B, Clarika, Christophe Willem, Julien Clerc and Laurent Garnier.
Umdenstock also composes and arranges music for shows, humanitarian projects, documentary films, dramas and, most recently, a France TV animated series. This production activity began in 2007 when he teamed up with Lausanne-based producer, musician and DJ Ripperton, who introduced him to electronic music. Together they wrote several tracks for his albums, Niwa (2010) and A Little Part Of Shade (2013), as well as several remixes for artists such as Phonique, Jimpster and Ellen Allien. Since then, Germain Umdenstock has set up his own recording studio in Geneva.
Germain Umdenstock holds a Master of Music diploma from the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève (2004) and a music pedagogy diploma from the Société Suisse de Pédagogie Musicale (2006), and teaches guitar at the Conservatoire de Vevey-Montreux Riviera and at Emagina-sons in Grand-Lancy. As part of these two institutions, he set up the Rock Workshops, which he has been running since 2009. The students in these workshops paid tribute to Claude Nobs at the Miles Davis hall in February 2013 and won the Senheiser prize at the 2014 Swiss Youth Music Competition, Pop/Rock section, and have performed every year since 2015 on the Music In The Park stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Don Vappie is an American tenor banjoist/guitarist from New Orleans. He was awarded the prestigious 2021 STEVE MARTIN BANJO PRIZE and was inducted into the BANJO HALL OF FAME in 2022. A lifelong musician, Don also performs as a bassist and vocalist. He is an educator, lecturer, and expert not only about New Orleans jazz but its place and importance in the contemporary music scene. With 8 albums as a leader, Don has also recorded and/or performed with numerous artists including Peggy Lee, Terence Blanchard, Wynton Marsalis, Eric Clapton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dr. Michael White, Bela Fleck and many more. His latest release, THE BLUEBOOK OF STORYVILLE, is a tribute to Creole Jazz, the melding of cultures containing the influences of the Caribbean in New Orleans jazz and was chosen the top jazz album of 2020 by the The Sunday Times of London. “Vappie brings Crescent City traditions to practically everything he touches.” – Howard Reich – Chicago Tribune
The Swedish guitarist Mats Bergström (b. 1961 in Gävle) grew up in Stockholm in a family of musicians. After graduating from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, then a further year of study in London and a debut recital at the Wigmore Hall, he worked mainly as a session musician during the 1980s on both electric and acoustic guitar. Two years as a post-graduate student at the Juilliard School in New York at the beginning of the 1990s were followed by a conscious move towards chamber music. Today he is often heard accompanying some of our most prominent singers, or otherwise as a boundless soloist and ensemble player.
He has been a frequent guest with Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt) and the London Sinfonietta and has appeared with orchestras such as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (HK Gruber: Busking), the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Tan Dun: Guitar Concerto) and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Kurtag: Grabstein für Stephan). Mats Bergström’s acclaimed version of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint has been presented in concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms 2011) and Festival Hall in London, the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, Grieghallen in Bergen and Stockholm’s Konserthus in the presence of the composer himself.
In his discography, amongst his works of note are his recording of Bach’s Sei Solo – the three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin, transcribed for guitar – which has been praised in the international press and was nominated for a Swedish “Grammis” award, Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin together with Olle Persson, and a series of albums with Georg Riedel on the theme of Songs Without Words.
Mats Bergström, who lives in rural Uppland in Sweden, is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 2006. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious Litteris et Artibus medal by King Carl XVI Gustaf.
First prize winner of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America (USA) competition in 2015, BBC New Generation Artist (2017-2019), « Révélation Instrumentale » of the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2019, and winner of Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival (2023), Thibaut Garcia, has gradually established himself as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation.
The Franco-Spanish guitarist was born in 1994 in Toulouse where he obtained his guitar prize in the class of Paul Ferret, before continuing his training at the CNSMD of Paris in the class of Olivier Chassain, while benefiting from the advice of Judicaël Perroy.
Thibaut Garcia now plays in the most important concert halls and festivals throughout the world: Wigmore Hall in London, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier, Salle Bourgie in Montreal, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Grands Interprètes in Toulouse, Festival Musiq’3 in Brussels, Berlin Philharmonie, Teatros del Canal, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Bachfest Leipzig Auditorium de Bordeaux, Seine Musicale, Grand Théâtre de Provence…
Since his concerto debuts with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in 2016, Thibaut Garcia returned in 2023 for the creation of El Bihr by Benjamin Attahir. He has also collaborated with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the BBC orchestras, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Bordeaux, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen, the Silesian Philharmonic, the Münchner Symphoniker, the Orchestre National d’Ile de France, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Saint Etienne, the Orchestre National de Metz, the Orchestre National de Lyon…
Highlights of the 2024-2025 season, are concertos with the Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, and returns to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival (as the « WEMAG Soloist » prizewinner), the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Palau de Musica Barcelona, and also debuts at the Philharmonie Luxembourg. He is curating « Guitarmania » at the Philharmonie de Paris in April, where he showcases his instrument and its ambassadors for a week.
In chamber music, Thibaut Garcia also performs with Edgar Moreau, Raphaël Sévère, Elsa Dreisig, Marianne Crebassa, Lucienne Renaudin-Vary, Anastasia Kobekina, the Quatuor Arod… He also forms duets with Philippe Jaroussky (A sa guitare), Félicien Brut (Vol de Nuit), and Antoine Morinière (Goldberg Variations).
Thibaut Garcia has been a Warner Classics/Erato artist since 2016. After Leyendas in 2016, Bach Inspirations in 2018, Aranjuez in 2020 (Choc de Classica, Diapason d’Or, Gramphone Editor’s Choice), his album À sa guitare in duet with Philippe Jarrousky was released in autumn 2021. In autumn 2023 is released his album El Bohemio¸ devoted to the composer Agustin Barrios Mangoré.