Collection: Soto, Pere

Pere Soto was born in Badalona (Catalonia, Spain). He is a guitarist, composer, arranger, and music producer. At age 17 he quit his studies, suffering from nervous exhaustion, and focused on music, to the chagrin of his family.  He is entirely self-taught. Setting out to be a performer, he was unable to afford a guitar and was forced to make do with instruments borrowed from friends or even, on one occasion, from a missionary at the Carmelite Church.  As a left-hander, he simply learned to play right-handed guitars upside-down. Eventually, when he was 20, his father acknowledged the growing reputation Soto was acquiring through concerts, radio programs and the local press, and bought him a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (the first left-handed Gibson in Spain).  

Soto has gained international renown for an aesthetic and stylistic flexibility that covers genres as diverse as gypsy jazz, free jazz, avant garde, jazz fusion, and bebop.  In classical music, he writes and performs contemporary and electroacoustic music, mostly in twentieth-century styles. He has over a thousand jazz and classical compositions registered with the Spanish performing rights society SGAE. He is also active as a music producer, with his own recording studio; and as a consultant-engraver for music publishing companies.  

Visit the composer’s website at www.peresoto.com