Simon Thacker is a composer, classical guitarist, improviser and ensemble leader. Equally at home playing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with orchestra or performing his reimaginings of Bengali Baul spiritual songs for an audience of 60,000 at South Asia’s largest folk festival, Thacker is one of Scotland’s most distinctive and compelling musical figures. His music has been nominated for The Ivors Composer Awards and won a Scottish Award For New Music. His compositions for solo guitar distil his classical training and years of collaborations with leading musicians from traditions around the world, spanning Romany, flamenco and South Asian classical, folk and spiritual forms. His own compositions are complemented by music that has been central to his artistic journey, including by the "Paganini of the guitar from the jungles of Paraguay" Agustín Barrios, Brazilian guitarist and composer Isaías Sávio and Nobel Prize–winning Bengali poet and composer Rabindranath Tagore.