Angel Romero - A Touch of Class: Popular Classics Transcribed for Guitar (1988)

Of the guitarists of Spain's renowned Romero family, Angel Romero is noteworthy for the breadth of his musical activities. He has performed and recorded often with other family members, especially his brother Pepe, but his own career has taken an increasingly independent course.

The youngest of the the three performer sons of Celedonio Romero, Angel Romero was born in Málaga, Spain, in 1946. He gave his first professional performance at age six and was an international touring artist by the time he was in his mid-teens. The Romero family moved to California in 1957 to escape restrictions placed on them by the Franco dictatorship in Spain, and his first performance in the U.S. came when he was 16, at the Hollywood Bowl. Since then, Romero has been a familiar recitalist and soloist in all the major European and American capitals. He was especially close to the well-loved Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo and gave the premiere of that composer's Rincones de España in 1991. Romero studied conducting with Eugene Ormandy and in 1998 recorded a disc with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields as both guitarist and conductor. That recording was one of more than 20 Romero has released. Later on he has was affiliated with the Delos label. In 1986 Romero was given the Spanish Grand Cross of Civil Merit, and in 2000 he was honored with the Spanish equivalent of knighthood and began to use the name Sir Angel Romero.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Romero branched off in several new directions. With pianist George Shearing he recorded French composer Claude Bolling's Concerto for guitar and jazz piano trio. He was especially associated with film music, performing the whole score of the 1989 Robert Redford-directed epic The Milagro Beanfield War and composed scores for several other films, winning a Mexican Ariel award (similar to a U.S. Academy award) for his score for the film Bienvendido in 1995. He recorded crossover and flamenco material, which resulted in a new demand for his services among mid-sized U.S. orchestras that featured pops-oriented programming. The New York Times has said that Romero is "an artist of unfailing musicality. His playing is virtuosic but inevitably dignified." His is a secure place in the long line of Spanish guitarists issuing from the Segovia tradition, and he is an especially accessible representative of that tradition. © James Manheim