Francesco Lo Castro

Born in Salerno, Italy in 1974, guitarist and composer Francesco
Lo Castro started studying guitar late in life, aged 25. He developed his guitar styles and technique under the tutoring of the great south Italian maestro Gianni Cataleta. He quit his Economic Studies (and a full time job in marketing) to fully focus on music in 2004. Two years after, he graduated with honors in music performance from a BMus at Thames Valley University (London). In the same year, he won the Best Guitarist Award at the Guitar Institute in London where he attended tutoring classes by Shaun Baxter and Iain Scott among others. He then earned a scholarship for MMus, completed in 2008, by winning the Vice Chancellor's Award at TVU. In the same period he learnt his craft by performing an average of 130-160 gigs per year in clubs, pubs and theatres all around the world playing with jazz, funk, pop and rock artists. He has performed in some of the most prestigious venues includng the Hamer Hall (Melbourne), the State Theatre (Sydney), The Concert Hall (New York), the Expo Centre (Singapore), the Bercklee Performance Centre (Boston), the Benedum (Pitsburgh), Barbican (London), Palatrussardi (Milan). The guitar style and composing techniques of his solo works and with his quintet IMPROFIVES suggest an intriguing combination of melodic Italian tradition with modern jazz. In 2009, he was offered to teach Guitar Technique on the Degree Course held by the Academy of Music and Sound (Wolverhampton University). Since 2010 he is also multi-platinum selling Warner artist Patrizio Buanne's touring guitar player and with him he regularly tours Australia, Europe, USA and Asia. He also collaborated with legends such as Jim Mullen (Morrisey-Mullen), recorded for Geoff Wilkinson (Us3) and performed with contemporary musicians such Francesco Mendolia (Incognito), Richard Sadler (Neil Cowley Trio), Damein Nolan (VV Brown), Roberto Manzin (James Brown) among others.
FOR MORE INFO PLEASE VISIT www.flocastro.com
"huge thank you goes to Francesco Lo Castro, awesome guitarist and producer whose music knowledge and talent are second to none." - Steven Bryan, Skope Magazine