A musician known as “the best acoustic guitarist in the world” will make a stop in Cincinnati on his latest tour.
Grammy-winning Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel will play the Taft Theatre this Saturday, Aug. 22, in support of the new 20th Anniversary Remastered edition of his album The Mystery. Released in 2006, the album includes the track “Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag,” which was nominated for “Best Country Instrumental Performance” at the 49th Annual GRAMMY Awards.
Tommy Emmanuel first began touring at the age of six in his native Australia as part of a family band. By his early twenties, Emmanuel was playing on chart-topping hits and performing with some of the biggest names in Australian music, including Air Supply and Men at Work. Emmanuel stepped out on his own as a solo artist in 1979, releasing the first in a string of critically and commercially acclaimed instrumental albums that would make him an unlikely celebrity in his home country and beyond.
In the decades that followed, he would go on to headline everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall; tour with the likes of Eric Clapton and John Denver; win a GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement; and perform for a televised audience of more than two billion at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. Recently, Emmanuel celebrated his 70th birthday.
“As I get older, I find myself taking a lot more risks, and having a lot more fun in the process,” Emmanuel said in a statement. “When young people come to my shows and have this awakening that it’s okay to be different, that the possibilities of music and self-expression are limitless, that’s what it’s all about for me.”
Tickets for Tommy Emmanuel’s tour can be purchased now on the Taft Theatre’s website.