Profile: (Sentence: Koji Fukui)

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Born in Gifu prefecture, Japan. Flamenco guitarist. Aspiring to play flamenco guitar from the age of 16, he moved to Spain under the Franco administration from 1972 to 1977 for training. Returned to Japan after receiving inspiration from many big names such as Paco Tronjo and Porrina de Badajoz. Opened his own flamenco studio near Ikebukuro. Since then, until now, he invited many big singers such as Chocolate and Rafael Romero and held their concerts for the first time in Japan. As an educator, he has an influence on many singers and guitarists including Eizo Tawara. As a result, he left a great deal of achievement in the development of Japanese singers and guitarists from the end of the Showa era to the Heisei era, although at that time a word "Flamenco" was solely considered to mean a dance.

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He is one of the rare Japanese flamenco artists, with an enormous amount of knowledge comparable to flamenco scholars. His knowledge is so extensive that it covers almost all the traditional flamenco styles that exist: Cadiz, Jerez, Sevilla, Morón, Utrera, Lebrija, Cante Gitano, and Cante Payo.

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As a guitarist, he is a master of old-school guitar and is a person who conveys the aesthetics of guitar before Paco de Lucía. He is a rare existence in the world that inherits the style of the legendary master Perico del Lunar. In addition, he is one of the world's best accompaniment masters and knows how to bring out the best performance of singers. Hence, Spanish singers such as David Palomar have great trust in his accompaniment technique. He is not just a classical school guitarist, but his timbre also projects Japanese sensibility, and therefore he is both a successor of tradition and a reformer.

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He is known among flamenco fans as a "true flamenco gentleman" because of his noble behavior, which is specializing in supporting singers. He is respected as a modest person although there are more than enough reasons to call him a living great figure of Flamenco.