Artist database

Sándor Szabó was born in 1956 in Törökszentmiklós, Hungary. He started his studies with a private teacher of classical guitar. After trying different styles from the middle of the seventies, he began to focus on improvisation and composition. His career started in 1980. From the beginning of his carreer he belongs to the exotic players and composers. In his compositions he blends the Far-Eastern music with the Hungarian folk traditions in an improvised context. He plays all kind of guitars, ouds, guzheng,esraj. He soon became known internationally with his original style, modern pieces, and deep spirituality. His music can be heard on more than 60 records, which has been released in England, USA, Italy, Germany, Venezuela, Norway and Hungary.

He collaborates in several duo projects with such artists like Kevin Kastning (US), Balázs Major (Hungary), Veronique Gillet (Belgium), Roland Heidrich(Hungary), Claus Boesser Ferrari (Germany), Edoardo Bignozzi (Italy), Dean Magraw (US), Juan Gaspar (Mexico), Michael Manring (US), Claus Boesser Ferrari (Germany), Ralf Gauck (Germany) Alex De Grassi(US), Fernando Freitez(Venezuela), Alf Wilhelm Lundberg (Norway) just to mention a few.

Szabó is a world touring musician, performed throughout Europe, USA, Japan, Canada, India, South-Korea as a solo guitar player. He also did some master classes in the US, France, Italy and India introducing his special harmony concept. He is a master of playing 16 string guitars, baritoneguitars, double neck fretless koboz, and guzheng. Szabo is not only an acoustic guitar player, he plays processed electric guitars and composes modern electronic music (Echolocation I. album). Since 2008 Sándor works for the American Greydisc label as a sound engineer and sound designer. Sándor Szabó launched a web site about his researches for ancient Hungarian Oriental Music. Sándor Szabó is a committed composer of modern Oriental contemporary music. He produced two significant albums in this style: Modern Hungarian Maqam (2010), Curse Ousting Music (2016).

In 2012 he has published his first book in Hungary titled The Metaphysics Of The Music. In 2010 he finished his monumental composition called Hungarian Guitar Raphsody. In 2015 he published his second book called The Musicmaker Ancient East. He took part on the Sharq Taronalari festival in 2013 and 2015 as an independent musicresearcher representing Hungary. He was also invited to Oriental Music Conference in 2014 to Baku, Azerbajan.