ARTIST BIO

Dennis Koster has been La Bella’s Artist-In-Residence for over 30 years, helping develop and design La Bella’s full-line of Flamenco and Classical Guitar strings.
While still in his teens, Dennis Koster began his career as a flamenco guitarist. Today’s flamenco has become a jazz-influenced and infused art, but Dennis Koster carries on the tradition of concert-classical flamenco guitar first introduced to the music-loving public in Paris in 1927 by the great Don Ramón Montoya and brought to the world by his followers Niño Ricardo, Mario Escudero and Sabicas. Koster is one of the few guitarists ever to have learned this music directly from both Mario Escudero and the legendary Sabicas.  He has celebrated this legacy in radio and concert performances throughout the United States, Japan, Spain and Latin America. A great virtuoso performer, Koster is also a leading authority on flamenco guitar, being the author of the internationally best-selling three volume flamenco method the Keys to Flamenco Guitar.
DennisKoster’s 1975 Carnegie Hall debut as a classical guitarist, was hailed in the New York Times as “ a considerable success… a brilliant, aptly fantastic performance”, earning special attention because of his transcription of Zoltan Koldaly’s Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8. Since that time, Dennis Koster has earned a considerable reputation for the quality and depth of his original transcriptions, successfully translating to the guitar great masterworks from the violin, piano and cello. Dennis Koster’s Alice Tully Hall concert in November 2002 premiered selections from his Musical Heritage Society release Mozart Fantasy on Guitar – Dennis Koster Plays Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. Also available on the MHS label is Koster’s landmark recording Flamenco Clásico – Concert Solos for Flamenco Guitar.
Of special importance is Dennis Koster’s long-standing collaboration with composer Samuel Zyman of the Juilliard School of Music. Mr. Zyman’s music has been performed worldwide by major artists and ensembles, which include the American Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Mexico, Placido Domingo and cellist Yo Yo Ma. Samuel Zyman has composed and dedicated to Dennis Koster major solo works, concertos for guitar and orchestra and chamber works which represent a major contribution to concert guitar literature, and yet another unique aspect to Dennis Koster’s concert performances.