SILK AND FIRE: GUITAR AND FLAMENCO AT LICHFIELD FESTIVAL


Back in 2021, Lichfield Festival tentatively programmed its first post-Covid summer event, hopeful that audiences would want to come! It needn’t have worried.


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The escapism of music, drama and dance was what everyone craved, and one of the highlights of that year was the dynamic partnership of Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang and Spanish flamenco dancer Maria Vega who lit up the Lichfield Cathedral stage with their exuberant and colourful performance. This summer, they’re back with a brand new programme and we caught up with Xuefei who told us all about it, and her own incredible journey as a pioneering Chinese guitarist.


Xuefei’s story, emerging from post-Cultural Revolution China to become the first internationally-recognised Chinese guitarist on the world stage, is one of determination and self-belief.


In her


extraordinary career, she’s played in more than 50 countries with the world’s leading orchestras and


collaborative partners, and has


released 25 superb recordings. Now based in the UK, her rise to the top has included being named by Classic FM as one of the 100 top classical musicians of our time, and she has appeared on a BBC documentary ‘The Story of Guitar’ as well as on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.


But Xuefei’s journey was far from straightforward, as she explains: “As a lively, rather boisterous child, my parents hoped that learning an


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instrument might help channel my energy into something more focussed,” she says. “This was shortly after the Cultural Revolution, and Western instruments had not yet fully re-established themselves in China. But my teacher had a deep love for the guitar and had gathered a small, informal group of students, quite possibly one of the very first of its kind in the country at that time.”


ENTERTAINMENT LICHFIELD FESTIVAL 2026


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