Jose Angel Navarro 

“Navarro’s ability to sustain multiple rhythmic voices at the same time is a phenomenon relatively unexplored in the guitar repertoire.”
– Banning Eyre, ARTS THE BOSTON PHOENIX, November 8th, 1996

“Jose Angel Navarro’s CD “Miel” opens a door to the unlimited possibilities of solo guitar”.
– Diane Gordon, ACOUSTIC GUITAR, 1997

Cuban born José Ángel Navarro is a self-taught Guitar soloist, instructor, composer, and arranger, as well as a college graduate Sound Engineer, and Graphic Designer, with an outstanding international career spanning more than three decades.

Mr. Navarro teaches guitar at “Encore Academy of the Arts” and “Encore Music Academy” since 2011, when he joined the Encore faculty one year after the opening of the latter. Mr. Navarro’s commitment to teaching and his passion for music is better denoted by his students’ loyalty to his unique approach to music and teaching.

A self-taught musician, Mr. Navarro has developed over the years his own system and technique of guitar playing, teaching, and composing, which he defines as “unique in the world, and a total innovation in the sense of conceptual sonority, as it aims to emulate the rhythms of Afro-Cuban ceremonial drum patterns on the guitar by simultaneously combining left-handed muffled harmonics with open notes.”

With 22 albums of his own music recorded to date, and a number of collaborations with other artists as a session musician, Mr. Navarro has won several music awards, such as “Best Album” for his CD “Mano Con Fusa” in the category of Instrumental Music at the CUBA DISCO (2003,) a Grammy Award in 2003 as a special guest in Nelly Furtado’s album “Loose,” as well as “Best Artist” in the “Musical Revelation Awards” in Northern Italy in 2001. Mr. Navarro has also composed music for television, film, radio, and documentaries, winning in 2001 the “First Prize” for the soundtrack of the documentary “Deforestation” at the Cannes and Chile film festivals.

He has performed in 18 International Guitar Festivals around the world, sharing the stage with internationally acclaimed guitar masters such as John McLaughlin, Stanley Jordan, Mike Stern, Paco De Lucia, Vicente Amigo, Tomatito, Raimundo Amador, Larry Coryell, Joan Bibiloni, Bireli Lagrene, Javier Vargas, Ray Gomez, Luis Salinas, Strunz, and Farah among others. His performances and recordings cover a wide spectrum of genres and styles, from Classical, Flamenco, and Fusion, to Jazz, Latin Jazz, and New Age.

Mr. Navarro complemented his self-taught musical training with prestigious scholars such as Leo Brouwer and Eliseo Alemán. But he had previously earned a degree in Civil Engineering from the “Instituto Superior Politécnico J. A. Echeverría” of Havana, Cuba (1987.) He also graduated in 1999 in “Art Design” from the “Scuola Politecnica di Design” in Parma, Italy, and later, in 2009 he completed a course in Sound Engineering & Audio Recording at the “Full Sail University” in Orlando, Florida.