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Yiannis Efstathopoulos | 'The Exiled Guitar': Spanish Guitar Music c. 1930

Guitarist Yiannis Efstathopoulos presents the UK launch of his recently-released album Seis Caprichos on the Passacaille label - a project re-framing the modern Spanish classical guitar canon around the largely forgotten output of the so-called Generation 27. Composed in the 1930s, this music was only revived and published in recent decades; having fallen victim to the ravages of the Spanish Civil War, its composers were either assassinated or exiled by the Franco regime. The first guitar works to be written by non-guitarist composers, they represent part of the compelling zeitgeist of an era protagonised by the genius of Federico García Lorca, at a fascinating time when the guitar was still searching for its place and formulating its identity within the art music of Spain and beyond.

Greek guitarist Yiannis Efstathopoulos is a passionate performer and researcher of Spanish music who has performed and lectured in major concert halls, festivals and conferences worldwide. His studies include Classical Guitar, Early Plucked Instruments, Composition and World Music at the University of Macedonia, the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki and Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels (where he now works as a teacher and assistant researcher), as well as the Academia Chigiana in Siena and the Emilio Pujol Catedra Cervera. In recent years he has specialised in historical performance practices, and the Spanish Romantic Guitar in particular. As a PhD candidate at the Free University of Brussels he is currently completing his thesis on the Spanish Generation of 27. Yiannis performs on a guitar inspired by Santos Hernández, made by Christopher Dean.

Manuel De Falla: Homenaje a Debussy
Julián Bautista: Preludio y danza
Roberto Gerhard: Fantasía
Gustavo Pittaluga: Homenaje a Matéo Albeniz
Salvador Bacarisse: Pavane
Rodolfo Halffter: Giga
Antonio José Martinez Palacios: Sonata

Yiannis Efstathopoulos (guitar)

Co-produced by ILAMS and the Instituto Cervantes as part of Echoes Festival 2019 and the guitarrísimo series