My first instrument was classical guitar, which I started playing as a child in Spain. I developed a strong interest in early music while studying Music at Cambridge University, and I now mainly play renaissance lute, theorbo and baroque guitar.  I work as a soloist, accompanist, and as continuo player in baroque chamber music and in large-scale works such as the Monteverdi Vespers or Purcell's King Arthur.

I've always been interested in the widest range of classical music, and in making unexpected connections.  For example, in my solo concerts for the Lute Society in the UK and the Sociedad de la Vihuela in Córdoba, I set music for renaissance lute by Spinacino, Holborne and Dowland alongside Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal after John Dowland for classical guitar.

During 2010 I've been touring a programme of music from the greatest English lute manuscript, Matthew Holmes's lute book.  Venues have included the universities of Reading, Huddersfield and Leeds; the 2nd International Lute Festival in Fuessen, Germany; a repeat visit to the Sociedad de la Vihuela in Siguenza, Spain; and two performances for the Lute Society, which has just published a facsimile edition of the manuscript.  I've bee invited to perform the programme for the Nederlands Luitvereniging (Dutch lute society) in May 2011.

There's a lot of repertoire for voice and lute, and I work regularly with singers.  Since 2009 I've been working regularly with the Toulouse-based vocal group Antiphona playing lute, baroque guitar and theorbo in programmes of renaissance and baroque music from France, Italy and Spain, with concerts throughout Southern France.  

Looking back, my recorder and guitar duo Sambuca has performed throughout Europe.  Venues have included the Barbican Centre, Göttingen Handel Festival and Kloster Michaelstein (Germany), Zagreb Summer Evenings (Croatia), Salisbury international arts festival, Mulhouse international baroque festival (France), Sir Jack Lyons concert hall in York, and many universities and music societies.  Sambuca's two CDs have been played on Radio 3's Late Junction, and we appeared live on Radio 3's In Tune and on Croatian breakfast television.

The most unusual strand of my musical career has been playing with The Chuckerbutty Ocarina Quartet.  Following its Wigmore Hall debut with the Academy of Ancient Music, the quartet played in the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Centre, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, family concerts throughout Catalonia, and the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo as part of our 2009 Japan tour.  The quartet directed a residential ocarina workshop and performed at Dartington Summer School in 2002, and played for the British Flute Society with special guest Sir James Galway.  Our CD I Love my Ocarina appeared in 2009 and has also been heard on Late Junction.

I'm an active member of the Lute Society, and was proud to be a member of their University Challenge team on BBC2 TV in 2008.  My booklet 'Playing lute music on your guitar' is published by the Lute Society, and has been reprinted by the Universidad Nacional de la Plata, Argentina, and by Classical Guitar magazine.

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Concert programmes for solo lute
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