Chris Allard - Guitarist
"Great playing...beautiful...a real guitar player"
Pat Martino
Chris has performed at many venues in the UK, around Europe and the world, including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Nuremberg Festival, Giverny Festival, the Barbican Centre, Ronnie Scott’s, Montreux Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Hackney Empire, Cannes Festival, the Royal Festival Hall.
He has performed with Jacqui Dankworth, John Helliwell (Supertramp), Jamie Cullum, Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine, Mark Heart (Crowded House), Gwyneth Herbert, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Dave O Higgins, Carleen Anderson(James Brown), Tim Garland (Chick Corea) amongst others.
Chris has made many TV and Radio appearances, including performing live on the Paul OGrady Show and on Children in Need with Jacqui Dankworth, with whom he has also appeared on BBC radio many times. Others include Friday Night is Music Night with Gwyneth Herbert and the BBC Concert Orchestra live on BBC Radio 2. August 2009 Chris was a featured guest on Solar Radio, Los Angeles California, talking about new album Open Spaces and playing live in the studio.
Whilst being a freelance guitarist and a regular member of various bands, Chris also leads his own group - see Chris Allard Band page for more information. He is influenced and inspired by many sources, amongst them Pat Metheny, Miles Davis, Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jimi Hendrix, and Radiohead.
Chris also has many years experience teaching guitar. He has been employed by various colleges and conservatoires including the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and is on the faculty as Guitar Tutor at Colchester Institute. He is also available to teach private lessons. See Teaching page for more information.
"Rocking with bluesy angular lines...somewhere between Scofield and Carlton with a dash of fleet-footing Martino...he demonstrates gorgeous nylon-string polyphony...evocative acoustic work...demonstrates enough compositional and stylistic colour from his five-man band to suggest bebop is far from being Allard’s only brush"
Guitarist Magazine Four Stars
For more artist info and links to music tracks
please visit
www.chrisallard.co.uk