Guitarist Thibaut Garcia has gained attention for innovative programming and technique and for a style seemingly shaped by his partly Spanish ancestry. He has found international concert bookings, including substantial touring in North America.
Garcia was born May 26, 1994, in Toulouse, France, to French and Spanish parents. He took up the guitar at seven and began winning prizes as a child. He gained admission to the prestigious Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (the Paris Conservatory) at 16, studying with Olivier Chassain and Judicaël Perroy. In his first year as a student in Paris, he won first prize at Weimar, Germany's Ana Amalia competition, and he has continued to be a consistent competition prizewinner: he took top prizes at the International Competition of Seville, Spain, in 2013, the Petrer Guitar Competition in 2014, and the Guitar Foundation of America Competition in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 2015. He has maintained links to these festivals, serving on juries and giving master classes. Garcia released a recital album, Demain dès l'aube, on the Contrastes label in 2015. The Oklahoma City win broadened his reach in North America, where he was booked for a 60-concert tour in 2016 and 2017. He has also toured in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina, difficult markets for foreign guitarists to crack, and he has appeared as far afield as Australia and the French colony of New Caledonia.
In Europe, Garcia has been a ubiquitous presence, appearing in Italy, Germany, Belgium, among several others, as well as in France, where he is a familiar enough figure to have appeared on national television programs. He has played concertos with the BBC Symphony and various French groups. Garcia, charismatic and with a strong live concert base, was a natural for the revived Warner Classics label, and he was signed to its Erato division. He issued Leyendas in 2016 and followed that up with Bach Inspirations, a program of guitar music from various eras showing Bach's influence, in 2018. Garcia issued the album Aranjuez in 2020, following it up in 2021 with À sa guitare, on which he teamed with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. His busy touring schedule for late 2021 and 2022 included appearances across France, in London, and as far afield as the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
