ANDREW BLANCH

Andrew Blanch is a classical guitarist from Sydney with a busy and active performing career. His solo recital debut at the Sydney Opera House in 2017 was critically acclaimed, and he boasts more than ten prizes in international music competitions including the Adelaide International Guitar Competition in 2019. Limelight Magazine featured him as one of 30 rising stars of Australian classical music.  Jim McCutcheon for Soundboard Magazine (USA) described Andrew’s debut album Spanish Guitar Music (2015) as “one of the best debut albums I’ve ever heard.”

Andrew performs regularly with harpist Emily Granger, including at the Sydney Opera House (Bennelong Ensembles), Candlelight series, Brycefield Estate Music Festival, and the Newcastle Music Festival. Andrew’s duo with Ariel Nurhadi released the album Alchemy (2020) with ABC Classic.  Described as a “ripper of an album” (Daily Telegraph), Alchemy peaked at number 2 on the ARIA Core Classical Chart and was featured as Limelight Magazine’s recording of the month, November 2020.  Andrew also performs with percussionist Adam Jeffrey, cellist Ruben Palma, and is a member of the New Zealand Guitar Quartet and The Jose Carbo Trio. 
In addition to traditional classical music, Andrew works with Australian composers and contemporary music.  In 2018, he performed Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica Suite with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, Westlake himself conducting.

With Australian music advocate and percussionist extraordinaire Claire Edwardes he created ‘The Surge’ – An Ensemble Offspring and Topology collaboration touring extensively in May 2021 with world premieres of works by Felicity Wilcox, Jessica Wells and Robert Davidson and multimedia from Peachey and Mosig.  Andrew gave the 2020 world premiere of a work for guitar and string quartet by David Banney. With Ariel Nurhadi he performs the world premiere of a work by Indigenous composer Chris Sainsbury at the 2021 Canberra International Music Festival.  With the assistance of Create NSW, Andrew is commissioning a guitar concerto by Daniel Rojas.  Andrew graduated from the Australian National University with First Class Honours in 2013 studying under Timothy Kain and Minh Le Hoang.  He teaches and gives masterclasses around Australia and internationally, and is current acting President of the Sydney Classical Guitar Society.  Andrew is managed by Tier 1 Arts, and plays a 2014 Smallman and Sons guitar