Esteban is the stage name of guitarist Stephen Paul. Esteban is from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Recognizable by his bolero hat and sunglasses, Esteban has gained commercial success by selling his instructional DVDs and guitars on QVC and HSN and has produced numerous Billboard ranked albums.

Biography

Paul was the oldest of four children. He recounts that he began playing guitar at the age of eight when his uncle brought him a nylon-stringed guitar. He attended South Hills Catholic High School (since absorbed into Seton-La Salle Catholic High School) in Mt. Lebanon. He then attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he double-majored in music and English. At this time, he was teaching approximately 150 students a week and playing in nightclubs.

Segovia

Esteban states that at this point in his studies of the guitar, he felt a strong desire to study with Andrés Segovia. According to Esteban, after a long period where he pursued Segovia by sending notes to the hotels where he was staying, finally meeting Segovia in Los Angeles in 1972 and studied with him intermittently for the next five years, splitting his time between Spain and California. The extent of the connection between Segovia and Esteban, however, is heavily disputed. Although Esteban did meet Segovia, Esteban is not mentioned in any biography of Segovia, and Esteban never received the public acknowledgment Segovia gave students such as John Williams and Eliot Fisk. Segovia autographed one of his books for Esteban in 1978 with a flattering message, but Segovia is known to have signed hundreds or thousands of such messages.

Esteban is a Spanish given name; it is a variant of the name Stephen.

People with the given name Esteban