Guitarist

Born in France of Spanish parents, Rafael ANDIA first studied the violin. At the age of eighteen, after an identity crisis which led him to an awareness of his own family musical tradition he decided to devote his life to the guitar. The Flamenco that he first practiced yielded to the classical guitar after several years, but his conception of the instrument remains durably fixed under that first influence. For example, his pursuit of Hispanic influence in the field of classical music of the past led him first to pioneer the development of the Spanish baroque guitar, deeply imbued with popular dance. In the 1980s he then recorded several albums, using ancient instruments, that are still anthologised to this day, such as the Robert de Visee integral.

In the same manner, when he incites a movement in favour of the modern guitar among the composers of his acquaintance, it is always that quest to realize his vision of the "true guitar" that guides his steps. He then edits and records as premieres the works of the best of the French musicians: Jolivet, Ballif, Murail... This "New Virtuosity" is to some extent then, part of the same concept of an "Other" guitar, widely using non-classical techniques.

For several years now, Rafael ANDIA has become interested in writing music and, faithful to his origins, his compositions lie in that in that little explored realm that lies midway between the Flamenco tradition and the scholarly music of the Iberian Peninsula. In furtherance of his research he recently founded the collection "Guitarra Iberica" whose aims are to assemble all of the components of this renewal.

Rafael ANDIA has been teaching baroque and classical guitar in the famous Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris since 1971.

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