Born in 1955 in Morocco to Andalusian parents, guitar virtuoso Eduardo Niebla brings his considerably nimble-fingered talents to Bradford Festival in June.
His numerous musical collaborations include the Dante String Quartet and pop musicians George Michael and Craig David.
Evidently he prefers to play in company, usually with Carl Herring or Matthew Robinson on guitar and Dharmish Parmar on tabla.
He looks relaxed on stage, foot across a knee, smiling at the musical phrases coming to him, letting his fingers do the work. He said he does not like to play a piece the same way twice, what he calls “fixed music”.
He said: “I love to play. It makes it lovely with other musicians. If you play fixed music it’s more likely you play solo. I like to improvise a lot.
“When you play with other musicians it makes the music alive. It’s good to give yourself room to create: it makes you feel like you challenge yourself.”
Since moving to North Yorkshire 11 years ago, with his wife Katherine, he said he had enjoyed working with choirs, 60 to 80 singers at a time, setting his own compositions.
For his debut Bradford show in City Park, hopefully under a Hockney-blue sky, he plans to work with members of Bradford Festival Choral Society. But they won’t be singing songs.
“There’s not going to be any lyrics. Sounds rather than words, voices in rhythmic patterns, using voices as instruments,” Eduardo added, explaining what he had in mind for Bradford’s historic choir – founded in 1856.
“We have plans to meet before the concert. They will have sheet music, so they can read that. For me it is very easy to work with a multitude of voices. It’s wonderful for me as a composer.”
Since 1974 he has made 23 albums of his original compositions and performed them all over the world. Latterly, he has produced his albums at his own recording studios near Ripon, including his latest CD My Gypsy Waltz, launched at Celtic Connections Glasgow and the Queen Elizabeth Hall London last year.
He has also written music for films, documentaries and plays, including for the BBC. In 2011 he wrote a new collection of pieces for guitar and string quartet and for guitar, brass band, fishermen’s choirs and folk musicians, called My Yorkshire Road, which he premiered at Ryedale Festival.
Thomas Leech, musical director of the choral society, said: “We’re really looking forward to providing the singers for this fantastic show.  It’s great for our members to have a real range of musical opportunities and they’re already enjoying preparing the songs - I’m sure Eduardo will inspire us”
l Eduardo’s festival show is scheduled for City Park on Saturday, June 15, between 3pm and 4pm.