Gabriel Bianco, winner of the XXVIII Andrés 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 Andrés Segovia guitar competition,
such as Mª Esther Guzmán, have performed due to their high qualification score,
Gabriel Bianco is the first guitarist who is to take part in Granada’s Festival as a result
of winning the Andrés Segovia competition. For the first time, Gabriel Bianco’s recital
will be included in Granada’s 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 Ramón de Herrera at the Conservatoire National de Région, and concluded his
instruction at the Conservatoire Supérieur 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 Andrés 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, São Paulo, Poznan, etc.)

For the Festival of Music and Dance, Mr. Bianco has chosen an attractive and varied
program which will include, Fantasía que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de
Ludovico, the tenth fantasy of the first of the Tres libros de música 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 Milán, Enríque de Valderrábano, Esteban Daza, Diego
Pisador, Miguel de Fuenllana and Luis de Narvaéz 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 Départ” and “Le Retour,” composed by the
French guitarist Napoleón Coste (1805-1883). Coste, a disciple of our Fernando Sor,
edited and republished, after Sor passed away, Sor’s original method for guitar,
Méthode Compléte pour la Guitarre. “Le Départ” 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 Bach’s 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.