Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. His father Antonio Lauro Ventura, an Italian immigrant, was a barber who could sing and play the guitar so he taught his son what he could, but died when Antonio was still a child. After the family moved to Caracas, Lauro pursued formal musical study (piano, composition) at the Academia de Música y Declamación, where the composer Vicente Emilio Sojo (1887–1974) was one of his teachers. A 1932 concert performed in Caracas by Agustín Barrios, the Paraguayan guitarist and composer, so much impressed the young Lauro (already an accomplished folk guitarist) that he was persuaded to abandon piano and violin in favor of the guitar. From 1933, Lauro studied with Raúl Borges (1888–1967), and was introduced to the classical guitar repertoire. In the next decade, Borges' pupils would also include Rodrigo Riera, José Rafael Cisneros, and Alirio Díaz. These colleagues, especially Díaz, were later responsible for unveiling Lauro's works to an international audience, introducing these unheard works to, among others, Andrés Segovia, Leo Brouwer and John Williams.

Like many South Americans of his generation, Lauro was a fervent cultural nationalist, determined to rescue and celebrate his nation's musical heritage. As a member of the Trio Cantores del Trópico in 1935–1943 (Lauro sang bass and played both guitar and cuatro), he toured nearby countries to introduce them to Venezuelan music. Lauro was particularly attracted to the myriad colonial parlour valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes) created in the previous century by accomplished national composers such as Ramón Delgado Palacios (1867–1902). Unfailingly melodic and characterized by a distinctive syncopation (created by a hemiola in which two measures of 3/4 become a single measure of 3/2), such music was precisely the sort of folkloric raw material which Smetana, Bartók or Granados had elevated to the category of national art in Europe.

A concert whose programme consisted entirely of such valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes) by the distinguished Venezuelan pianist Evencio Castellanos (1914–1984) convinced Lauro that the guitar, too, should have comparable pieces in its repertory. Among his first efforts in this genre were the pieces later known as Tatiana, Andreína, and Natalia, composed sometime between 1938 and 1940; their instant popularity inspired still others. In addition to his guitar pieces, Lauro composed dozens of works for orchestra, choir, piano and voice; many of which remain unpublished. He occasionally experimented with modern compositional techniques, but most of his guitar music remains essentially on the Calle Real or "main street," an expression used by musicians of Lauro's generation to refer to a straight and direct route, without distracting harmonic detours.

Antônio Lauro - El negrito

Heitor Villa-Lobos; March 5, 1887 – November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music".[1] Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date.[2] A prolific composer, he wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works, totaling over 2000 works by his death in 1959. His music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and by stylistic elements from the European classical tradition, as exemplified by his Bachianas Brasileiras (Brazilian Bachian-pieces). His preludes for guitar, written in 1940, are important works in the guitar repertory, and were inspired by Andrés Segovia.

Mazurka Choro by Heitor Villa Lobos

My arrangement for Peter Gabriel song Sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer, guitar arrangement by Daniel Castro

The piece, which lasts around six minutes in performance, was originally written for the piano and set in the key of G minor. It was first published in Barcelona, by Juan Bta. Pujol & Co., in 1892 as the prelude of a three-movement set entitled Chants d'Espagne.

Asturias (Leyenda)- Isaac Albéniz

Josep Ferran Sorts i Muntades (baptized 14 February 1778 – died 10 July 1839) was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer. While he is best known for his guitar compositions, he also composed music for a wide range of genres, including opera, orchestra, string quartet, piano, voice, and ballet. His ballet score Cendrillon (Cinderella) received over one hundred performances. Sor's works for guitar range from pieces for beginning players to advanced players such as Variations on a Theme of Mozart. Sor's contemporaries considered him to be the best guitarist in the world,[1] and his works for guitar have been widely played and reprinted since his death.[2] Although modern classical guitar players usually do, Sor rarely used his annular finger or nails when playing.[3]

As Sor's works were published in various countries, his name was translated, leading to variations in the spelling. Variations have included Joseph Fernando Macari Sors, Fernando Sor, Ferran Sor, Ferdinand Sor, and Ferdinando Sor.

Estude Op.35, No.17 by Ferdinand Sor

João Teixeira Guimarães ou João Pernambuco foi um músico compositor e violonista brasileiro. Filho de índia caeté e de português, com o falecimento do pai em 1891 a mãe casou-se novamente, transferindo-se com a família para o Recife.

Interrogando "Jongo" by João Pernambuco

Enrique Granados was born in Lleida, Spain, the son of Calixto Granados, a Spanish army captain, and Enriqueta Campiña. As a young man he studied piano in Barcelona, where his teachers included Francisco Jurnet and Joan Baptista Pujol. In 1887 he went to Paris to study. He was unable to become a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was able to take private lessons with a conservatoire professor, Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, whose mother, the soprano Maria Malibran, was of Spanish ancestry. Bériot insisted on extreme refinement in tone production, which strongly influenced Granados’s own teaching of pedal technique. He also fostered Granados's abilities in improvisation.[2] Just as important were his studies with Felip Pedrell. He returned to Barcelona in 1889. His first successes were at the end of the 1890s, with the zarzuela Maria del Carmen, which attracted the attention of King Alfonso XIII.

Dedicatoria by Enrique Granados

El Noi de la Mare (The Child of the Mother) is a traditional Catalan Christmas song. The song was made famous outside Spain by Andrés Segovia who used to perform Miguel Llobet's guitar transcription as an encore.

El Noi De La Mare (Cancion Popular Catalana)

He began his studies at age 7, graduated in classical guitar at the Conservatory Tatuí. also participated in several editions of Campos do Jordao Festival, a scholarship.

Daniel de Almeida Castro

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