Unitarian Meeting Hall
Thursday 9th April 2026
It was a pleasure to witness the masterful performance of Gonçalo Maia Caetano at Bristol Classical Guitar Society on 9/04/2026, as part of IGF’s Young Artist Platform, which he completed last year.
He was born in Coimbra, Portugal and started playing guitar at the age of 7 years.
After studying in the Academia de Musica in Pinhel with Prof Pedro Espino, he completed his BA in classical guitar at the Royal Academy of Music with Professor Michael Lewin and went on to complete an advanced Diploma. Whilst at the Royal Academy of Musica, he won the Blyth Watson Concerto prize. He has performed in many concerts across Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and the UK , and has won more than 10 international competitions. He was awarded the Prince’s Prize in 2023, and was the Musicians’ Company Award winner 2022/23. He has a passion for Jazz music and plays in the Phemo quartet as a bass player along with pianist Ashkan Layegh who wrote the commissioned piece we heard this evening.
Gonçalo played a varied programme starting with Sylvius Leopold Weiss’ Overture in B-flat major. He created bright, joyful and warm tones with his new Greg Smallman guitar. He played wonderfully clear harmonics and ligados.
We were then treated to 4 movements by Toru Takamitsu under the title All in Twilight. The composer had been very influenced by a Paul Klee painting exhibited in New York under the same name, which inspired the composition . The first movement was discordant, and full of harmonics, the dark 2nd piece haunting with resonant base tones, the 3rd full of ascending and descending arpeggiated sequences which gave a dramatic feel and the 4th a slightly lighter and faster theme with more harmonics.
Miguel Llobet’s Scherzo-Vals was obviously very demanding of his left hand, with its very rapid scale sequences and ligados and its playful cadences.
In Augustin Barrios-Mangore’s Mazurka Appassionata, Gonçalo expertly mastered the essence of the mazurka, balancing the sensuous, ethereal song-like passages with moments of dramatic tension.
The IGF-commissioned piece (For Solo Guitar 2) by Ashkan Layegh was entirely suited to Gonçalo’s love of jazz, and explored the concept of “consistency through inconsistency”. The core of the music is built on 12 groove-based patterns which are treated as fragments which are regularly juxtaposed and reconfigured, successfully blurring the margins between classical music and jazz.
The evening ended with a wonderful rendition of Sergio Assad’s Aquarelle, a movement of 3 pieces which reflects on the structure of Brazilian folk rhythms. Gonçalo showed his mastery of the technical difficulties of the pieces. The 2nd movement, Valseana, named after one of Assad’s students, was the most recognisable, and the high energy and syncopated rhythms of Preludio e Toccatina brought the concert to a finale.
I think that the BCGS would agree we have witnessed an incredible new talent with amazing lightness and speed of hand. We will hear a lot more of him in the future I’m sure!
Programme
Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750)
Overture in B-flat major
Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996)
All in Twilight
I. —
II. Dark
III. —
IV. Slightly Fast
Miguel Llobet (1878–1938)
Scherzo-Vals
Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885–1944)
Mazurka Appassionata
Ashkan Layegh (b. 1997)
For Solo Guitar 2 (IGF Commission, 2025)
Sérgio Assad (b. 1952)
Aquarelle
I. Divertimento
II. Valseana
III. Prelúdio e Toccatina