World-renowned French guitarist Gérard Abiton has been giving concerts on all continents for decades. Although he only began playing guitar as a self-taught musician at age 12, he was admitted to the Conservatoire Supérieure National de Musique in Paris just four years later. He won prizes at several festivals and attended master classes and summer schools with such twentieth-century luminaries as Andrés Segovia, Abel Carlevaro and John Williams. Throughout his career, he has performed music from all continents and epochs with the motto: “I prefer what moves me to what surprises me” defining his choice of music. To open up repertoire for the guitar, he himself arranged works by Couperin, Mendelssohn, Granados and Haydn, among many others. He was a long-time teacher at conservatories in Paris and regularly gives master classes at international festivals.