Ian Scionti (1981. Oregon, USA), has performed all over Europe (Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, England, etc.), the United States (San Francisco, New York, Seattle, etc.) and the Middle East (Israel) in festivals, theaters, concert halls, jazz clubs, etc., both as a soloist as well as working in larger productions alongside dancers and singers of international acclaim. He is a tenured flamenco guitar teacher at the Profesional Music Conservatory of Seville, as well as holding a PhD in Social Anthropolgy as well as undergraduate degrees in Flamenco Guitar and Jazz Guitar, respectively.
Scionti began studying piano at the age of 7 before discovering the guitar at age 12. His interest in jazz led him to the San Francisco Bay Area where he studyied with Mimi Fox, and later to New York City where was able to take classes with Howard Alden and Ron Affif. In 2002 he began to study flamenco guitar with Steve Kahn and in 2004 he moved to Seville, Spain where he currently lives.
In 2005 he received a scholarship to the Fundación Cristina Herren de Arte Flamenco in Seville where he studied guitar with Miguel Ángel Cortés, Niño de Pura, Tino Van der Sman, Eduardo Rebollar, and Pedro Sierra besides perfecting the accompaniment of flamenco singing with Esperanza Fernandez, José de la Tomasa and Paco Taranto. Outside of the Fundación he immerses himself in the accompaniment of flamenco dance playing in the academies of Juana Amaya and Isabel Bayón. In the Superior Conservatory of Music of Córdoba he studies guitar under the direction of Manolo Franco and Niño de Pura and musicology with the reputable flamencologist Faustino Nuñez. He has participated in intensive workshops with Manolo Sanlúcar as well as Ralph Towner.
His more academic persuits have led him to complete an undergraduate degree in Flamenco Guitar in 2011 from the Superior Conservatory of Music of Córdoba. He later completed a Doctoral Thesis in Social Anthropology in 2017 in the program “An interdisciplinary analysis of flamenco” in the University of Seville, with research focused on modern flamenco guitar and issues of identity and innovation. That same year (2017), Scionti achieved a tenured teaching position as a flamenco guitar teacher in the Professional Conservatory of Music of Seville, being amongst the first civil servants to hold positions in flamenco guitar, as well as being the only foreigner (to date) to achieve a position of this type. More recently, he completed a second undergraduate degree in Jazz Guitar in 2021 from the Superior Conservatory of Music of Seville, the first graduating class of this new program.
