The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars derive from instruments such as the lute, the vihuela, the gittern, which evolved into the Renaissance guitar and into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.
A guitarist is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar by singing or playing the harmonica, or both.
Francisco Peña Pérez, known as Paco Peña, is a Spanish flamenco composer and guitarist. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players.
Elvenking is a heavy metal band from Sacile, Italy. They have released one demo and eleven full-length studio albums. Elvenking's music draws inspiration from different genres such as metal, folk, hard rock, pop, prog, and classical music.
Necrophagist was a German technical death metal band founded and fronted by guitarist and vocalist Muhammed Suiçmez. The band used baroque music-influenced compositions paired with extreme metal drumming.
Spawn of Possession was a Swedish technical death metal group, which formed in 1997 in Kalmar. The band have collectively released three studio albums. A fourth album was planned, but in 2017 the band announced their split up.
Epitaph is the second and final studio album by German death metal band Necrophagist released by Relapse Records on August 3, 2004. Unlike on Onset of Putrefaction, guitarist and vocalist Muhammed Suiçmez recorded the album alongside a full band instead of recording it by himself. Though most uncredited, guitarist Christian Münzner, who later departed from the band and joined Obscura, confirmed he wrote at least half of the lead guitar parts as well as several basslines on the album. The track "Only Ash Remains" incorporates the melody of the "Montagues and Capulets" segment of the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev.
Dark Fortress was a German melodic black metal band from Landshut formed in 1994. They released seven studio albums, a split album and a demo album. The band broke up in 2023.
Christian Münzner is a German guitarist who plays for the bands Obscura and Alkaloid. He is also known for playing for the technical death metal band Necrophagist from 2002 until 2006, appearing on their 2004 release Epitaph. As well as Necrophagist, Münzner played in Defeated Sanity from 1999 to 2002 and Obscura from 2008 to 2014, after which he left to co-found the extreme progressive metal supergroup Alkaloid. He rejoined Obscura in 2020.
Séance is the fourth studio album by German melodic black metal band Dark Fortress. The album was released on 30 January 2006 through German record label Century Media Records. Alex Krull mastered the album in the Mastersound Studios and the whole layout of the booklet was designed by Travis Smith. The original album version comes with a 12-page booklet.
Obscura is a German technical death metal band from Landshut, founded by guitarist and vocalist Steffen Kummerer in 2002. The band have released six studio albums, a compilation album and twelve music videos since its formation. Their latest album A Valediction was released on 19 November 2021 via Nuclear Blast.
Cosmogenesis is the second studio album by German death metal band Obscura. It was released on 17 February 2009 by Relapse Records. The album debuted at No. 71 on the Top Heatseekers chart.
Hannes Grossmann is a German drummer who plays for the German progressive band Alkaloid. He was also the drummer during Necrophagist's Epitaph era and played with Obscura.
Linus Klausenitzer is a German bass player, best known for being a former bassist for the German progressive death metal band Obscura. He also plays bass in a German/Dutch progressive death metal band Noneuclid, as well as progressive death metal project Alkaloid along with current and former members of both Obscura and Noneuclid.
Thomas Zwijsen is a Dutch/Belgian (Flemish) classical acoustic and heavy metal guitarist. He is known for his arrangements of Iron Maiden songs for classical guitar both on YouTube since 2007 and with his 2013 and 2014 albums "Nylon Maiden", "Nylonized" and "Nylon Maiden II". Since 2011, he has worked closely with ex Iron Maiden and Wolfsbane frontman Blaze Bayley, co-composing Bayley's 2012 album The King of Metal and 2013 released Russian Holiday EP. In 2015, he released an album in Flamenco/fusion style consisting entirely of his own compositions, entitled "Divide & Unite".
Neopera is a German band which combines symphonic metal music with light electronic music, operatic vocals and death growls. The band was formed in 2011 in Hamburg.
Concert de Gaudí is a concerto for classical guitar and orchestra by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was jointly commissioned by Norddeutscher Rundfunk and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for the guitarist Sharon Isbin, with additional contributions from Richard and Jody Nordlof, to whom the piece is dedicated. It was completed August 1, 1999 and premiered in Hamburg, January 2, 2000, with Isbin and the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchester led by conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The piece was later awarded the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Michael Laucke was a Canadian classical, new flamenco and flamenco guitarist and composer. 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. With a career spanning over 30 years, Laucke began performing in 1965, recording the first of 16 albums in 1969, and 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.
Bart John R Stenhouse is an Australian jazz fusion musician and teacher. He fuses jazz with elements of rock, flamenco, blues and Indian classical music. He formed the Bart Stenhouse Group to perform his work. In 2014 he issued a studio album, Blue Benares, with Abe Stewart, a percussionist. Stenhouse followed by in 2015, two further albums with the jazz fusion band, the Bart Stenhouse Group, these were Five Days in Granada and The Best of Times. He also teaches music and is a record producer.
Beyond Creation is a Canadian technical death metal band from Montreal, Quebec. They are currently signed to Season of Mist records. The group has released three studio albums to date: The Aura (2011), Earthborn Evolution (2014), and Algorythm (2018). They have toured extensively in Europe, the United States and Japan, supporting bands such as Obscura and Dying Fetus, while headlining tours alongside acts such as Revocation, Psycroptic and Virvum. The band's 2018 release Algorythm received a 2019 Juno Awards nomination for "Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year."
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