Rob Luft is an award-winning young guitarist from London whose virtuosity has been compared to that of six-string legends John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola & Paco De Lucia. Praised by The Times for his performances with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, who said he was destined ‘to achieve great things in the future’, Rob was subsequently the recipient of the 2016 Kenny Wheeler Prize from The Royal Academy of Music, and he also received the 2nd Prize in The 2016 Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival. His debut album, “Riser”, was released on Edition Records in 2017 to widespread critical acclaim from the European jazz media. John Fordham wrote in The Guardian that it’s a “very sophisticated debut, but given Luft’s old-soul achievements since his early teens, we should have heard it coming”.

Concert highlights for Rob include performances with artists including Django Bates’ Saluting Sgt Pepper, Loose Tubes, Laura Jurd’s “Dinosaur” and Tommy Smith’s Scottish National Jazz Orchestra (SNJO). As well as leading his own project, Rob is a regular member of a multitude of some of London’s finest modern jazz groups, such as Byron Wallen’s “Four Corners”, Eddie Parker’s “Airborn”, The Alice Zawadzki Group and Iain Ballamy’s “Mole catchers”. Additionally, he appears on Liane Carroll’s last album on Linn Records (‘Seaside’), two albums from Italian drummer Enzo Zirilli on Milanese label UR Records (‘Zirobop’ & ‘Ten to Late’) and the last release from Misha Mullov-Abbado on Edition Records (‘Cross-Platform Interchange’). Finally, he was the recipient of the 2015 Peter Whittingham Award as part of two collective ensembles: Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and jazz-rock quartet Big Bad Wolf.