Michael’s CDs

guitar, guitarist, fingerstyle,composer,classical, celtic, world music, traditional, jazz

Michael's CDs

“One of the very best acoustic guitarists in the world....music of the most exquisite order.”
Matt Fink, All Music Guide

In a performing and recording career of more than two decades, guitarist and composer Michael DeLalla has brought to the forefront of acoustic music his delicious brew of traditional influences from around the world, steeped with his classical training and seasoned with his jazz, Celtic and folk stylings. Beginning in the '80s as the driving force behind Philo/Fretless recording artists Oxymora, the seminal group that Tom Cole of National Public Radio called "the cutting edge of New Acoustic Music", Michael has forged a distinguished and storied career on stage and studio from his fluency on classical, 12-string, and steel-string acoustic guitar and memorable performances that showcase gifted improvisation and dazzling technical facility that never sacrifices the richness and poignancy of his compositions.
Michael’s concerts feature his original compositions and arrangements of traditional tunes gathered worldwide that showcase his particular virtuosity, punctuated by his wry, sometimes irreverent observations of the experiences that are behind the pieces. The result is not just a collection of instrumental works, but also a narrative of his travels and travails found in his varied musical habitats, from a capella kan e diskan in Breton Gaelic, to evocations of Japanese koto music, to tweaking the nose of the Classical Music world with his raucous "Piece for Steel Drum (If I Played Steel Drum)".

“Michael DeLalla's finger-style guitar genius is akin to that of Tony McManus …
of a class of what I call the Unholy Triumvirate of the American Acoustic Guitar:
David Bromberg, John Fahey, and Leo Kottke…a guitar guru…”
Steve Reel
The Greenman Review