Vlatko Stefanovski returns to the Macedonian Philharmonic on December 17 with a concert titled "Vlatko Stefanovski and Friends - An Acoustic Evening". After more than five decades on stage, the man who wrote the grammar of Macedonian rock guitar is deliberately choosing the hardest format there is: no effects, no wall of sound, just acoustic instruments in a hall that forgives nothing.

Stefanovski was born in Prilep in 1957 into a theatre family and picked up the guitar at thirteen. As a teenager he formed Leb i sol, which across fourteen albums became one of the most important names on the entire Yugoslav scene and one of the few Balkan bands to fuse rock, jazz and Macedonian folk melodies without it sounding like a compromise. After the band broke up at the end of the eighties he turned to a solo career: "Cowboys and Indians" in 1994, "Sarajevo" in 1996 in aid of the UNICEF fund for children, and in 1999 the acoustic "Krusevo" recorded with Miroslav Tadic. He has also written music for film, animation and ballet since the late seventies.

The acoustic format is not an accident. Stefanovski's guitar is recognisable precisely for its phrasing and for what happens in the silence between the notes, and in a big hall with a full band that gets lost fast. The programme will cut across the whole body of work: compositions from the Leb i sol years and pieces from the solo albums, performed with guests whose line-up changes from night to night. The Philharmonic seats under a thousand, which puts this concert closer to a chamber gig than to an arena.

The concert starts at 8pm on December 17 in the hall of the Macedonian Philharmonic in Skopje. Tickets range from 1,500 to 2,500 denars depending on the sector and are sold through karti.com.mk. For anyone who has wanted to hear Stefanovski properly, without amplification that hides the work of the fingers, there are not many chances like this in a year.