Add your email below to subscribe to the newsletter.
Martin will be playing at the Festival de Guitarra in the beautiful city of Santo Tirso in Portugal on May 26th 2012. Other guitarists performing at the month long guitar festival include
Full details on the festival including booking information can be found at www.festivaldeguitarra.org
Martin will be performing at this years Singapore International Guitar Festival on June 20th. The concert is at the RELC International Hotel Auditorium and details can be found by clicking here.
Central China TV (CCTV) has just aired a feature on Martin Taylor and his online guitar school with ArtistWorks. Online student Mike Wollenberg talks about getting online fingerstyle guitar lessons with Martin. You can sign up to Martin’s online guitar school at www.martintaylorguitar.com from only $90 for a three month subscription and join guitarists in over 58 countries who have already done so.
Watch the video by clicking here (interview starts at 36min 55sec).
We’re excited to announce that Martin Taylor will be performing his ‘Spirit of Django Suite’ at the 2012 BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall on August 31st. With the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, this summer’s BBC Proms promises to be unlike any other. Over eight weeks the Proms welcomes a truly international line-up of leading orchestras, conductors and soloists from the UK and around the world. Every concert is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and online, and many of them will be televised on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four. Tickets go on sale from 9.00am on Saturday 12 May via bbc.co.uk/proms, by telephone on 0845 401 5040 or in person at the Royal Albert Hall.The line-up for the special concert will be:
About ‘The Spirit of Django Suite’
Late 2010 saw the world premiere of an exciting new work for guitar, orchestra and big band with the creation of ‘The Spirit of Django Suite’ by two of the biggest names in jazz, guitarist and composer Martin Taylor MBE and composer and arranger Guy Barker. Guy Barker came up with the idea of basing the Suite around some of the themes that Martin Taylor had already written for his award-winning group Spirit of Django by creating an orchestral piece featuring Martin Taylor, Spirit of Django, the Guy Barker Big Band, and a full orchestra.
The Spirit of Django Suite was composed to ‘reek of nostalgia’, with many elements of Django Reinhardt and Debussy coupled with the sounds of black and white films of summers in France. In fact France would also be the home of another key element to the piece, the great Jaques Tati, and this is reflected in a comedic almost cartoon like section in the piece. The 54-minute orchestral suite is a very rare settingof a full symphony orchestra, a big band plus a small group and Martin Taylor.
About Martin Taylor
Award winning guitarist MARTIN TAYLOR has established a unique musical career as an internationally acclaimed musician, and his inimitable style has seen him recognised as the world’s foremost exponent of solo jazz guitar playing. As well as being a true guitar innovator, he is also a master concert performer, dazzling audiences with his solo shows, which combine virtuosity, emotion, humour, with a strong stage presence. In addition to his solo concerts and recordings, he has also collaborated with musicians from many different musical genre including, Stephane Grappelli, Jeff Beck, Chet Atkins, Bill Wyman, George Harrison, Dionne Warwick, Sacha Distel, Bryn Terfel and Jamie Cullum. He spends much of the year travelling the world, playing in concert halls in Europe, North America, Japan, Asia, and Australasia as well as presiding over the uniquely innovative Martin Taylor Guitar Academy online.
About Guy Barker
GUY BARKER is an award winning musician/composer and arranger. As a trumpet player he has performed with many great artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Sting and Lena Horne. His composing and arranging credits include The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Kurt Elling, Jamie Cullum, Paloma Faith, Melody Gardot plus many large orchestral projects for the BBC and the London Jazz Festival. He has also composed music for films including The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. Two of his solo albums were nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.
Martin Taylor and Guy Barker © William Ellis
Martin Taylor will be appearing at the MusikMesse show in Frankfurt on March 21st 2012 to promote the new range of Martin Taylor guitars with Peerless. The Martin Taylor Maestro and the Martin Taylor Virtuoso guitars will be on display at the Peerless stand G61, Hall 3.1. We’ll be adding more details on the guitars, including ordering details, on martintaylor.com very soon.
Canadian TV recently did a piece on Martin Taylor at the Montreal Guitar Festival (part of the Montreal Jazz Festival) talking about playing fingerstyle guitar and why he doesn’t consider himself a jazz guitarist.
A portrait of Django Reinhardt, the fulfillment of his own symphonic dream, featuring master guitarist Martin Taylor and the breathtaking violin wizardry of Florin Niculescu.
Django Reinhardt and the legendary violinist St├®phane Grappelli perfected a European jazz form in the legendary Le Quintette du Hot Club de France. However, the self-taught guitar genius Reinhardt was also fascinated by symphonic music and left behind a significant number of distinguished compositions which he dreamed of performing in a symphonic setting.
After sold-out concerts in Th├®├ótre des Champs Elys├®es Paris, Victoria Hall Geneva, and Auditorium Lyon, the celebrated Symphonic Django project – a posthumous fulfillment of Django’s lifelong dream – is to be performed for the first time in the UK by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a specially invited line up of international soloists.
Martin Taylor guitar
Florin Niculescu violin
Ola Kvernberg violin
Andreas Ôberg guitar
Jon Larsen guitar
Diego Imbert bass
Alexander Hanson conductor
To book tickets and for more information go to www.symphonicdjango.com
Martin’s duet album ‘Two for the Road’ with clarinetist Alan Barnes has been getting some really nice reviews since its release. If you haven’t already picked up your copy you can get it at Amazon or iTunes. Here are just a couple.
Bio:
If you can imagine the ideal soundtrack to driving through the scented country roads of France on a hot lazy summer’s day then it would be the music of Martin Taylor’s Spirit of Django. To mark the 100th Anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of European jazz Django Reinhardt, Martin Taylor reformed his award winning group Spirit of Django after a 15 year hiatus for the new album, ‘Last Train to Hauteville’.
Martin Taylor first came to prominence in the 70’s through his work with violinist Stephane Grappelli and as such is able to trace his musical lineage back to Django Reinhardt and the original Quintette du Hot Club de France.
In 1994 Martin formed Spirit of Django to re-explore his own Gypsy roots. Their first album reached No.1 in the UK Jazz Charts with their version of Robert Palmer’s ‘Johnny & Mary’ becoming familiar across Europe as the theme the successful ‘Nicole-Papa’ TV adverts for Renault Clio. They were voted Best Small Group in the BBC Jazz Awards and went to the top of the US Gavin Jazz Charts.
Award winning guitarist MARTIN TAYLOR has established a unique musical career as an internationally acclaimed musician. As well as being a true guitar innovator, he is also a master concert performer, dazzling audiences with his solo shows, which combine virtuosity, emotion, humour, with a strong stage presence. As well as his solo concerts and recordings, he has also collaborated with musicians from many different musical genre including, Stephane Grappelli, Jeff Beck, Gary Burton, Chet Atkins, Bill Wyman, George Harrison, Dionne Warwick, Diane Schuur and Jamie Cullum. He spends much of the year travelling the world, playing in concert halls in Europe, North America, Japan, Asia, and Australasia as well as presiding over the uniquely innovative Martin Taylor Guitar Academy online.
Audio:
Video:
© Martin Taylor Music 2010