Flamenco Guitar - Manolo Sanlucar

The beauty of YouTube is that it provides the opportunity to find real gems which would probably have previously been lost.
Today we discovered some footage of Manolo Sanlucar, the incredible flamenco player.
The film is of a piece he composed himself, 'Fantasia para guitarra y orquesta', and shows flamenco playing at its best, with a brilliant display of picado runs from the middle to the end.
For those not familiar with the terminology of flamenco playing, 'picado' is the alternate use of the fingers, i and m, of the right hand.

Sanlucar's right hand appears incredibly relaxed and the whole performance seems completely effortless. It reminds me of Pepe Romero's famous quote "It's easy to play the guitar well but very difficult to play it badly."

Whilst this piece was recorded on the RCA label, it doesn't appear to be currently available, which is a real shame.
As there's limited information about the piece, we don't know who the orchestra are, although I suspect they are Spanish, nor if Sanlucar orchestrated the piece himself. If someone out there has any more details then do get in touch.

However this does highlight the importance of YouTube and similar sights. Without them we would not have had the opportunity to see and hear this exceptional playing.