It is one of the greatest accolades for any musician to play in one of the world's most famous venues: the Royal Albert Hall in London. Now it has become a reality for classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglić.
"I dreamed about the Royal Albert Hall even at the time when I was a boy in Montenegro. I dreamed that one day I will play there and that coming to London – as hard as it was for my family and for me – all made sense because I thought that one day I will play in the Royal Albert Hall," Karadaglić told euronews. "You need to have so much energy inside you to be able to radiate this electricity to every single person in the hall.
"If you think of the Royal Albert Hall, 3000 people and more, it is almost like you are this atom in the middle and that you are holding everything into that nucleus of the whole room." This fast rising star is on a mission – he wants the classical guitar to become popular once again. The 29-year old is seen as an ambassador for his instrument.
"Every day I practice I search for different colours and for different effects," he told Musica. "You know when you play a phrase and you are doing it and doing it and doing it and then you reach that one note and that note is that special colour, it hits you right where it needs to hit you and I find that the biggest beauty of the guitar. You can create a whole different rainbow sound on the guitar – from the brightest to the most dark and coloured sounds – you can make a symphony."
His love and talent for the guitar were discovered at an early age. At 16, he recorded an audition tape in secret for the renowned Royal Academy of Music in London. He won a scholarship and left his home country. Music became a comfort in his lonely hours – especially the piece Koyunbaba by the Italian guitarist Carlo Domeniconi: "It was very very touching for me to play Domeniconi because that piece always reminds me of those first couple of months in London when I was very very sad and when things were very very hard. I just felt when I played it that I was almost experiencing those emotions again and putting them to rest because now it is a new chapter.
"It is incredible when you wish for something and it all comes together. A lot of things that I have experienced are almost like a déjà vu because in my head I had always seen the vision of these things."
In this story you can hear excerpts of: Isaac Albéniz Asturias, Heitor Villa-Lobos Prélude no. 1, Carlo Domeniconi Suite op. 19 Koyunbaba
