Following nearly a month of live music, the 2010 Córdoba Guitar Festival enters the home stretch. Special edition number thirty of this prestigious event will have a double guitar closing performance. On Saturday, July 24th, Paco de Lucía offers the first finishing touch at the Teatro de La Axerquía, a concert whose tickets sold out some days ago. The guitarist, recently named doctor honoris causa by Boston’s Berklee College of Music, is carrying out an intense international tour this season with the repertoire from his latest album ‘Cositas buenas’ and an anthological selection of his discography which he will take to stages like La Fenice in Venice. Then on Sunday, July 25th, it will be guitarist and singer Mark Knopfler who finally closes the curtain of the festival at the city’s Plaza de Toros (Bullring).

Paco de Lucía

And although it concludes the 30th Córdoba Guitar Festival - which has shown the jondo visions of artists like Eva Yerbabuena, Arcángel, Paco Peña and Javier Latorre - with Paco de Lucía’s concert, flamenco will continue to imbue Córdoba’s cultural program in the months to come. The next event will be from November 8th to 27th, 2010, the dates when the nineteenth edition of Córdoba’s National Flamenco Art Contest is to be held at the city’s Gran Teatro. The competition is entered by new talents as well as already recognized names of cante, baile and toque seeking the endorsement of this prestigious award, founded in 1956. Registration has been open at the website www.flamencocordoba.com since June 16th and continues until October 8th.