Scottish classical guitar virtuoso Simon Thacker makes his final visit to the University of Aberdeen as part of his two year Visiting Fellowship on Dec 1st. Having brought some of the most ambitious and innovative ensembles in the UK to Aberdeen over the last two years, his final performance as Visiting Fellow will be in the format in which he is best known, as solo recitalist in a programme of uncommon diversity and emotional range, exploring every facet of this most poetic and affecting of instruments.

The programme includes music by Mexico’s greatest composer and friend and favourite composer of the Spanish guitar Maestro Andres Segovia, Manuel Ponce, the explosive “Hyper Romanticism” of legendary Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, Spain’s most influential music creator Manuel de Falla in a moving tribute to his mentor Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten’s haunting masterwork Nocturnal after John Dowland, commissioned by Julian Bream and still considered the finest piece ever written for guitar, and a pulsating and atmospheric new work for digital delay and guitar by Simon Thacker, expanding the sonic limits of the instrument with accessible new music.

Simon Thacker is well known not only for his acclaimed solo and chamber music performances but also as a leader of innovative and groundbreaking ensembles. He is Head of Guitar at Edinburgh Napier University, has been nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award and was a winner of the 50th Park Lane Group Young Artist Awards. Simon has performed in Cuba, the USA, Spain, Malta, France and Belgium, and broadcast on Cuban TV and BBC Radio 3.

He leads innovative East/West project The Nava Rasa Ensemble, featuring nine of the UK’s finest Indian and Western classical musicians, which has just released a CD of outstanding new guitar concerti by Indian composer Shirish Korde and the UK’s Nigel Osborne. Simon is the founder of and main composer for Camerata Ritmata, with three of the UK’s leading jazz/world musicians. His latest project is Svara-Kanti with three classical Indian virtuosi, with whom he will be performing at the Southbank Centre London on Dec 8th.

King’s College Chapel, University of Aberdeen, AB24 5UA

Thurs 1st December 7.30, £8.00, £5 conc, £2 children, box office 01224 641122

Guitar masterclass: Fri 2nd Dec

www.simonthacker.com

Source: Simon Thacker