Guitar

Firmly positioned as a leading exponent of his instrument, Miloš Karadaglić continues to top record charts and delight audiences worldwide. His first three releases on Deutsche Grammophon achieved major chart successes around the globe, prompting The Telegraph to declare that ‘classical music has a new guitar hero’. His 2014 recording of Joaquín Rodrigo’s concertos had the Sunday Times calling him ‘the king of Aranjuez’, while Blackbird: The Beatles Album was received with unanimous acclaim.

Karadaglić has appeared at almost all major concert halls and festivals around the globe. He is also the first-ever classical guitarist to have performed a solo recital at the Royal Albert Hall, returning in August 2018 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra to give the world premiere of Ink Dark Moon, an exciting new guitar concerto written specially for him by Joby Talbot. In 2019, he premiered Howard Shore’s guitar concerto, The Forest, commissioned for him by the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa and Alexander Shelley. More recently, Karadaglić has been on tour with The Voice of the Guitar, performing solo and with various ensembles throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and the United States.

Karadaglić is a passionate supporter of music education and acts as a Patron of Awards for Young Musicians as well as Ambassador for Live Music Now, the London Music Fund and Wigmore Hall’s Learning programme. He has also appeared as a mentor for the nationwide talent competition Guitar Star on Sky Arts, in addition to co-presenting the 2014 BBC Young Musician competition and returning as a judge in 2018.

Born in Montenegro in 1983, Karadaglić first started playing the guitar at the age of eight and at 16 successfully applied for a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music. He was appointed a Fellow of the Academy in 2015. In 2016, BBC Music Magazine included him amongst six of the greatest classical guitarists of the last century.

Photo by Lars Borges Mercury Classics

Xuefei Yang is hailed as a musical pioneer – her fascinating journey began after the Cultural Revolution, a period when Western musical instruments and music were banned. She was the first-ever guitarist in China to enter a music school and became the first internationally recognised Chinese guitarist on the world stage.

Yang’s first public appearance was at the age of 10 and received such acclaim that the Spanish Ambassador in China presented her with a concert guitar. Her debut in Madrid at the age of 14 was attended by the composer Joaquín Rodrigo and, when John Williams heard her play, he gave two of his own instruments to Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music especially for her and other advanced students. Yang was the first guitar student to be awarded an ABRSM international scholarship to undertake her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied under Professor Michael Lewin and won the Principal’s Prize on graduation.

Yang is one of the few guitarists whose artistry connects with audiences far beyond the guitar fraternity. Her international success has led her to be invited to play in more than 50 countries at numerous prestigious venues and she is frequently invited to play with the world’s leading orchestras and collaborate with artists such as Ian Bostridge, Rosalind Plowright and Sir James Galway.

Yang has made many a wide variety of acclaimed recordings for major labels, including solo, chamber and concerto albums. Her first on EMI Classics received a gold disc and her second was selected as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine. Her next recording will be Sketches of China to be released in 2020 by Universal. She has appeared on numerous media channels including BBC Radio 4’s Woman's Hour, the BBC Proms and documentaries for the BBC and China Central Television.

Gramophone magazine praised Yang as one of the leading innovators of her generation for continuing to build the guitar repertoire, while Classic FM named her one of the 100 top classical musicians of our time.

Photo by Neil Muir