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THE best lineup of Top Guitar Players Anywhere. Period.
Welcome to the Lord of the Strings website!
2022 marks our 20th year of bringing you the best in acoustic music!
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
acoustic eidolon
Acoustic Eidolon, featuring Joe Scott on double neck guitjo and Hannah Alkire on cello are from Colorado and have graced stages throughout the US, Europe, Australia and Canada. With thirteen CDs and two DVDs to their credit, these masterful artists continue to captivate audiences throughout the world with their signature “new acoustic” sound and boundless possibilities in blending Celtic, Americana, World & Flamenco musical influences, something that Dirty Linen Magazine praises as “a sumptuous musical feast.” They are described by the Swallow Hill Music Association as “an evening of brilliant instrumentality,” and Georgia’s Good Life Magazine enthuses, “Acoustic Eidolon offers concert-goers a chance to absorb some of the most powerful and intriguing music on the scene today.”
Their original sound is created by the mixing of their diverse musical backgrounds and their unusual instrumentation including the one-of-a-kind double neck guitjo, an instrument of Joe’s own design praised by USA Today as a “beautiful harp-like sounding instrument … like nothing we’ve ever heard before.” The double-neck guitjo has 14 strings and Joe has developed his own style and technique, playing both necks simultaneously. Classically-trained cellist Hannah Alkire studied with G. Magyar of the Hungarian String Quartet and is recognized internationally for her stunning tone and emotional, impeccable playing and for taking the cello places it’s never been before.
What started as a musical journey between kindred spirits blossomed into their marriage in 2001. The result is a coupling of intricate and passionate music with genuine and engaging stories. They are each virtuoso players but their stories and connection to the audience add the backdrop of transparency from their lives, from the struggles to the triumphs.
One show only
Mission Viejo Civic Center
Saturday - March 18th
Doors: 6:30 pm
Show: 7:00 pm.
laurence juber
GRAMMY® winning guitarist Laurence Juber is a solo performer, recording artist, composer and arranger. His playing fuses folk, jazz, blues, pop and classical styles, creating a multi-faceted performance that belies the use of only one instrument.
A music graduate of London’s Goldsmith’s College, he was featured guitar soloist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra before becoming established as a studio musician in the mid-1970’s. First internationally recognized as lead guitarist in Beatle Paul McCartney’s Wings, with whom he won a Grammy, Juber has since established himself as world-renowned guitar virtuoso and entertainer.
Known to his fans as LJ, he has recorded more than two dozen albums spotlighting his unique touch and tone on acoustic guitar. His latest release is Select Blends, a ‘virtually’ live album pulled from his over 250 livestream performances during Covid lockdown.
His LJ Plays The Beatles was voted one of Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s all-time Top Ten albums. His solo arrangement of The Pink Panther Theme earned him a second Grammy, while his arrangement of Stand By Me was heard nationally in a Diamonds Are Forever commercial. Juber’s DVD-Audio project Guitar Noir (AIX Records) won a CES Demmy award for best audio.
Juber has 4 guitar folios in print. The latest, The Evolution of Fingerstyle Guitar was published by Hal Leonard in January 2019. His ‘photo memoir’ Guitar With Wings was recently published by Dalton Watson Fine Books.
As a studio musician, he can be heard on recordings from artists as diverse as Harry Styles, Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks, Seal and the French chanteuse Sylvie Vartin, plus he is featured on the soundtracks to hundreds of TV shows such as Home Improvement and movies including the academy award-winning Dirty Dancing, Good Will Hunting and Pocahontas.
Juber co-composed the soundtrack of the award-winning video game Diablo III and scored the NBC Dateline documentary Children Of The Harvest. His music is also featured in the Ken Burns’ documentary The Tenth Inning.
One show only
Mission Viejo Civic Center
Saturday - April 29th
Doors: 6:30 pm
Show: 7:00 pm.
transatlantic guitar trio
The international “Transatlantic Guitar Trio” has recently become a unique, phonetic highlight. The fingerstyle guitar champion Richard Smith (UK), the gypsy jazz virtuoso Joscho Stephan (D) and the brilliant multi-instrumentalist Rory Hoffman (USA) have joined forces in 2019 and have already performed at numerous renowned concert series and at several well-known festivals in the USA. It is unique how they put together jazz ballads, gypsy swing standards, a pinch of pop music and groovy original compositions to create a new whole: the broad repertoire of the “Transatlantic Guitar Trio” and the newly arranged Songs by the great role models such as Django Reinhardt, Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed make the CD of the 3-star guitarists an incomparable experience.
One show only
Mission Viejo Civic Center
Saturday - May 6th
Doors: 6:30 pm
Show: 7:00 pm.
MARTIN TAYLOR & BIRELI LAGRENE
MARIN TAYLOR - Widely considered to be the world’s foremost exponent of solo jazz and fingerstyle guitar playing, Martin possesses an inimitable style that has earned him global acclaim from fellow musicians, fans and critics alike. He dazzles audiences with a signature style that artfully combines his virtuosity, emotion and humor with a strong, engaging stage presence.
Taylor has enjoyed a remarkable musical career spanning across five decades, with more than 100 recordings to his credit. Completely self-taught beginning at the early age of 4, he has invented and developed a unique way of playing the guitar that is greatly admired, and often emulated, by guitarists all over the world.
In addition to his solo concerts and recordings, he has also collaborated with musicians from many different musical genres, including: Jeff Beck, Tommy Emmanuel, Bill Wyman, Chet Atkins, Stephane Grappelli, David Grisman, George Harrison, Jamie Cullum, Bryn Terfel, Dianne Schuur and Gary Burton.
Taylor brings a rich and varied musical heritage to his play, to the extent that Tommy Emmanuel remarked that [Taylor] is “a portal into all that came before.”
Over his stellar career, Taylor has amassed a record 14 British Jazz Awards as a guitarist. Several of his albums have been in the Top 10 in the USA and Europe.
BIRELI LAGRENE - Lagrène was born in Soufflenheim, Alsace, France, into a Romani family and community. His father and grandfather were guitarists, and he was raised in the Gypsy guitar tradition. He started playing at age four or five and by seven was improvising jazz in a style similar to that of Django Reinhardt, whom his father admired and wanted his sons to emulate. In 1980, while in his early teens, he recorded his first album, Routes to Django: Live at the Krokodil (Jazzpoint, 1981).
During the next few years, Lagrène toured with Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, and John McLaughlin, all of them guitarists, and played with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, and Stéphane Grappelli. He joined Larry Coryell and Vic Juris in New York City for a tribute to Reinhardt in 1984 and went on tour with Coryell and Philip Catherine. He also performed with Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, the Gil Evans Orchestra, Christian Escoudé, and Charlie Haden. In 1989 he performed in a duo with Stanley Jordan.
His collaboration with Italian guitarist Giuseppe Continenza, with whom he has performed in numerous concerts and festivals, including the Pescara Jazz and the Eddie Lang Jazz Festival, began in 1998, when the two met behind the scenes of a festival and started talking about each other's musical interests.
One show only
Mission Viejo Civic Center
Saturday - September 9, 2023
Doors: 6:30 pm
Show: 7:00 pm.