Fleeting Castles

"Each piece in this programme is like a fleeting castle where I can retreat whenever I feel like it," says Sébastien Llinares. The French guitarist, who works at the intersection of classical, jazz and contemporary music and also produces the programme Guitare, guitares on France Musique, places his playing in the service of all kinds of music. Jimi Hendrix' Castles Made Of Sand was the inspiration for this programme; Sébastien Llinares hears in it the unchanging open string so often used by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. His journey continues with homages to famous songs by Bernstein, Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart, an evocation of Rufus Wainwright and Baden Powell in the form of Habanera and Bossa Nova - and not forgetting a tribute to Django by John Lewis and the eternal Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, which sounds like an old Canario on the classical guitar. Two bagatelles and an impromptu composed by Llinares himself complete the family portrait.