Raphaël Feuillâtre: Latin Passions

Hailed by France Musique as the new face of the classical guitar, Djibouti-born French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre regularly delights audiences and critics worldwide with his charismatic artistry, embracing everything from Baroque-period repertoire to compositions by trailblazing contemporary composers. His jaw-dropping precision, technical mastery, and creative vision make works from all time periods sound as if they were written yesterday–alive, heartfelt, and filled with color. Don’t miss a passionate evening of Latin music, including many of Feuillâtre’s own arrangements.

This program is approximately 90 minutes.

“The music…fitted the guitar so well that, if you didn’t know better, you would have sworn they were written for them. They fitted the instrument absolutely beautifully in these transcriptions and Feuillâtre played them with such a lovely sense of legato and an understatedly gentle dynamic that, by the time the interval began, I found myself in something approaching a state of zen.”

— Seen and Heard International

 

The Old Church Concert Hall
Thursday, 11/5 • 7:30 pm

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Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

Program Notes for Raphaël Feuillâtre: Latin Passions

From Madagascar to Madrid, from Rio de Janeiro to the Rio de Plata, the nylon-string guitar has become an essential vehicle in a disparate constellation of creatively fecund cultures. Over the past decade, Raphaël Feuillâtre has emerged as one of the instrument’s most commanding champions of this far-flung realm. Combining virtuosity with a steadily expanding repertoire that embraces the guitar’s epic journey, he’s among the classical world’s foremost ambassadors. Making his Chamber Music Northwest debut, he presents “Latin Passions,” a program that seamlessly connects the guitar’s Iberian roots to its manifold New World musical fruits. 

Born in the nation of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and raised in Cholet, a small city in western France, the 30-year-old Feuillâtre is a dedicated educator who has earned a steady stream of awards and honors, including the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America competition in 2018 and the coveted, young-career boosting “Classical Revelation” award by France’s ADAMI collective in 2021. His rapid ascent was further fueled by Deutsche Grammophon, which signed him as an exclusive artist in 2022, making him one of only a handful of guitarists featured on the storied label.

Feuillâtre’s “Latin Passions” program expands on his second Deutsche Grammophon release, 2025’s Spanish Serenades, while embodying the wide-spectrum scope of his vision. In many ways he offers a narrative that’s both global and granularly intimate, opening as a dialogue between friends by alternating signature works of 19th-century guitarist Francisco Tárrega and pianist Isaac Albéniz. Creative confidants who influenced and inspired each other, both Spanish composers were deeply engaged with the country’s cultural multiplicity. Tárrega explicitly drew on the Gitano culture of Andalusia and Spain’s deep ties to the Maghreb on his Capricho árabe, while Albéniz offers a picaresque tour through Spain’s distinct regions on Suite española No. 1, Op. 47. Evoking the sweeping romance of Granada, the terpsichorean rituals of Catalonia, and the far-reaching power of Cuban rhythm (via Sevilla), among other locales, it’s a piece shaped by Feuillâtre’s interpretive brilliance as a player and arranger.

The conversation widens with El Testament D’Amelia, Miguel Llobet Solés’s deceptively unadorned rendering of a Catalan folk song, but it’s Tárrega who provides the thread running through “Latin Passions.” His iconic, technically demanding Recuerdos de la Alhambra is a de rigueur proving ground for classical guitarists, and it serves as the program’s emotional centerpiece. Feuillâtre is less interested in displaying his prowess than in revealing the vivid mélange of nostalgia, mystery and romance conjured by a site that represents the creative ferment of Al-Andalus and the Spanish Renaissance.

Bridging his love letter to Spanish guitar and its New World effervescence, Feuillâtre steps back into the Baroque, a world he explored with consummate intelligence on his 2023 debut album Visages Baroques. Gérard Abiton’s arrangement of Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonata in D Major, K. 492 leans into its flamenco source material, a space in which Feuillâtre thrives. But along with Cappricio Diabolico, Op. 85, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s finger-busting homage to the violin pyrotechnics of Niccolò Paganini, the program’s middle section essentially provides a palette-clearing (or would that be searing?) interlude before Feuillâtre plunges across the Atlantic.

The second half of the program follows the guitar to Latin America, where Feuillâtre finds possibilities for the instrument multiplying exponentially. Paraguayan composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s ethereal love letter, Mazurka Appassionata, showcases Feuillâtre’s sensuous touch, while Antonio Lauro’s tender ode to his daughter, Vals Venezolano No. 3 (“Natalia”), requires a different kind of sensitivity with its combination of spritely waltzes and Afro-Venezuelan syncopation. Sergio Assad, half of the Brazilian sibling duo that paved the way for Feuillâtre’s expansive repertoire, is well represented by Suite brasileira No. 4, Mvt. 1, a graceful piece inspired by a rural folk dance from Brazil’s vast southern interior.

Feuillâtre wears his debt to the Assads on his sleeve with the rest of the program, as the brothers quadruple-handedly made composers like Leo Brouwer an essential part of the guitar literature. The prolific Cuban composer’s El Decamerón Negro, Mvt. 2 is a famously tricky work that simulates a persistent echo. Feuillâtre foregrounds his love of dance rhythms with the great Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Selections from Suite populaire brésilienne, W020, which draws on choro, the first Brazilian style to meld African rhythms with European forms and instrumentation. He similarly honors the Assads’ pioneering guitar transcriptions of Astor Piazzolla’s supremely dramatic nuevo tango with The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, No. 2, a movement that encapsulates the Argentine composer’s revolutionary sound with flashing counterpoint and thick jazz harmonies.

The program concludes with Feuillâtre’s embrace of one of the guitar’s most adventurous practitioners, Roland Dyens. Though he died a decade ago at the age of 61, the Tunisian-born French maestro continues to occupy a vanguard position in the guitar firmament, and no piece of his burns more brightly than Libra Sonatine, Mvt. 3, a visceral response to a near-fatal encounter. Though his career is young, the wise-beyond-his-years Feuillâtre knows that “Latin Passions” encompass life, death, love, fury, pride, passion, and countless other feelings and experiences that can be coaxed out of a guitar’s wood and strings.

—© Andrew Gilbert

TÁRREGA “Capricho árabe”

FRANCISCO TÁRREGA (1852–1909) Capricho árabe

TÁRREGA Prelude No. 18 in D Major

FRANCISCO TÁRREGA (1852–1909) Prelude No. 18 in D Major

ALBÉNIZ “Torre Bermeja”

ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860–1909) Torre Bermeja, Arr. Raphaël Feuillâtre

TÁRREGA “Recuerdos de la Alhambra”

FRANCISCO TÁRREGA (1852–1909) Recuerdos de la Alhambra

ALBÉNIZ Suite española No. 1, Op. 47, Mvt. 5

ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860–1909) Suite española No. 1, Op. 47, Arr. Raphaël Feuillâtre

V. Asturias – Leyenda

MIGUEL LLOBET SOLÉS “El Testament d’Amelia”

MIGUEL LLOBET SOLÉS (1878–1938) El Testament d’Amelia

ALBÉNIZ “España,” Op. 165, Mvt. 5

ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860–1909) España, Op. 165, Arr. Raphaël Feuillâtre

V. Capricho Catalan

SCARLATTI Keyboard Sonata in D Major, K. 492

DOMENICO SCARLATTI (1685–1757) Keyboard Sonata in D Major, K. 492 Arr. Gérard Abiton

MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO “Cappricio Diabolico” (“Homage to Paganini”), Op. 85a

MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO (1895–1968) Capriccio Diabolico (Hommage to Paganini), Op. 85a (1935)

AUGUSTÍN BARRIOS MANGORÉ “Mazurka Appassionata”

AGUSTÍN BARRIOS MANGORÉ (1885–1944) Mazurka Appassionata

ANTONIO LAURO Vals Venezolano No. 3 (“Natalia”)

ANTONIO LAURO (1917–1986) Vals Venezolano No. 3 (“Natalia”)

ANTONIO LAURO “Ana Florencia” (canción de cuna)

ANTONIO LAURO (1917–1986) Ana Florencia (canción de cuna)

LEO BROUWER “El Decamerón Negro,” Mvt. 2

LEO BROUWER (b. 1939) El Decamerón Negro (1981)

II. La huida de los amantes por el valle de los ecos (The Flight of the Lovers Through the Valley of Echoes)

SERGIO ASSAD Suite brasileira No. 4, Mvt. 1

SÉRGIO ASSAD (b. 1952) Suite brasileira No. 4

I. Cateretê

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS Selections from Suite populaire brésilienne, W020

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959) Suite populaire brésilienne, W020

III. Valse – choro
V.  Chorino
I.  Mazurka – choro

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS 12 Estudos, W235, No. 12

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959) 12 Estudos, W235

XII. Animé

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” Mvt. 2

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921–1992) The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Arr. Sérgio Assad

II. Invierno Porteño (Buenos Aires Winter)

ROLAND DYENS “Libra Sonatine,” Mvt. 3

ROLAND DYENS (1955–2016) Libra Sonatine

III. Fuoco

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