CARLOS BONELL

Carlos Bonell has been described by the Classical Guitar Magazine, UK as "one of the great communicators of the guitar world".
 
Carlos was born in London of Spanish parents learning to play Spanish folk music from the age of 5 with his father who was a keen amateur guitarist. He completed his studies at the Royal College of Music with John Williams, where he was appointed the youngest ever professor at the age of 22. 

After Carlos' New York début in 1978, the New York Times described him as an artist of "superb poetic gifts". Appearances followed at many international Festivals followed including The City of London, Aldeburgh, Helsinki, Israel, Tanglewood, Sydney, Istanbul, and Hong Kong.

Currently, Carlos is helping Sir Paul McCartney, who is composing a concerto for guitar and orchestra. The work was featured in a cover article by The New Yorker magazine.

Carlos' recordings include the BBC TV Inspector Morse theme for the original series, as well as the more recent UK TV series Endeavour (the young Inspector Morse). His Queen Guitar Rhapsodies CD is a concerto-style arrangement of music by the group Queen for solo guitar and symphony orchestra. It was widely praised, including by Queen's Brian May himself. The album of Beatles arrangements Magical Mystery Guitar Tour went to number one on the UK classical iTunes charts, and reached the top ten in the overall UK iTunes charts.

In 2020, during the pandemic, he initiated the Zoomed Guitars Live on social media, a worldwide gathering of guitar players and music lovers. At the time of writing this is still active.