The classical guitar is a member of the guitar family used in classical music. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars are derived from the Spanish vihuela and gittern in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, which later evolved into the seventeenth and eighteenth-century Baroque guitar and later the modern classical guitar in the mid-nineteenth century.
Paco Peña is a Spanish flamenco composer and guitarist. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players.
Fernando Sor was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer. Best known for writing solo classical guitar music, he also composed an opera, three symphonies, guitar duos, piano music, songs, a Mass, and at least two successful ballets: Cinderella, which received over one hundred performances, and Hercule et Omphale.
Sabicas was a Spanish flamenco guitarist of Romani origin.
Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist of the Romantic period. He is known for such pieces as Recuerdos de la Alhambra. He is often called "the father of classical guitar" and is considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez, known as Paco de Lucía, was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a "titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar", and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as "one of history's greatest guitarists".
John Schneider is an American classical guitarist. He performs in just intonation and well-temperament, including Pythagorean tuning, including works by Lou Harrison, LaMonte Young, John Cage, and Harry Partch. He often arranges pieces for guitar and other instruments such as harp or percussion.
Pepe Romero is a classical and flamenco guitarist. He is particularly noted for his outstanding technique and colorful musical interpretations on the instrument.
Parlor or parlour guitar usually refers to a type of acoustic guitar smaller than a Size No.0 Concert Guitar by C. F. Martin & Company. Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms describes the term as referring to "any guitar that is narrower than current standards."
Alirio Díaz was a Venezuelan classical guitarist and composer, considered one of the most prominent composer-guitarists of South America and an eminent musician. He studied with Andrés Segovia, and gave concerts all over the world.
Julián Arcas was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer, who influenced Francisco Tárrega and Antonio de Torres. He was "one of the most important figures in Spanish music in the 19th century".
Goran Krivokapić is a Montenegrin classical guitarist.
Muriel Anderson is an American fingerstyle guitarist and harp guitarist who plays in many genres. She is the first woman to win the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship.
Scott Tennant is a Grammy Award-winning American classical guitarist. He is a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and is the author of the Pumping Nylon series of instructional books, repertoire supplements, and DVD.
Michel Jureidini, a Lebanese guitarist from Beirut, was born in 1975.
Rafael Andia is a French classical guitarist.
Gary Southwell is a British musician-guitarist and luthier, specializing in guitars of Modern Classical and Romantic eras, resident in Northumberland.
Michael Laucke is a Canadian classical, new flamenco, and flamenco guitarist and composer, and a music industry businessman. Starting at the age of thirteen, Laucke gave professional snooker demonstrations and his winnings allowed him to take trips from Montreal to New York City to study the classical guitar with Rolando Valdés-Blain. Still active in a career spanning five decades, Laucke began performing in 1965, recording the first of 16 albums in 1969, and has toured in 25 countries. In 1971, he performed his first of many concerts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His first concert in New York, where he also first met Senator Claiborne Pell, took place in 1972.
Philip John Lee was an English virtuoso flamenco guitarist, born in Norwich. At school he taught himself the mandolin, and at age 14 began classical guitar lessons. The following year he first heard flamenco, and decided to become a flamenco guitarist, devoting himself to its study for the next four years. At age 15 he built himself a classical guitar.
Éric Pénicaud is a French classical composer, classical guitarist and improviser.