“Sean Shibe once more offers audiences a breathtaking masterclass in tone, virtuosity, drama and delicacy as he presents an exquisite exploration of South American music, by Villa‑Lobos, Ginastera and Barrios.“
Profesión, performed by Sean Shibe, is Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice in December 2023 Issue!
“And Shibe himself? As he writes in his booklet note: ‘All of these composers, with very different methods and results, use the guitar as a shamanic conduit to the heritage and destiny of South America.’ Consequently, ‘Profesión’ finds Shibe taking his questing, questioning artistry to the next (spirit) level. Nowhere more so than in Villa-Lobos’s 12 Études, which form the centrepiece of the recital. Villa-Lobos’s Bach homage, the third of his Five Preludes, slips seamlessly into Barrios’s La catedral like an extemporised organ prelude opening out into something more expansive yet equally intimate.
Ginastera’s Sonata itself boils down Argentine folk material and nearly every guitar technique known at the time into something more viscous and muscular – qualities that Shibe seizes on, and communicates, with a pervasive sense of astonishment, as though he’s discovering the piece for the first time yet has known it for ever. Now that’s guitar-playing.“
William Yeoman
Read the full review HERE.
