These Young Guitarists Are Up to Big Things (2018)

Jake Curran, Ruben Wan, Tiana Ohara, Matt Zara, Benjamin Totten, Nicholas Veinoglou, Sus Vásquez

Part of what we do at PickUp is to highlight and celebrate incredible instrumentalists.

Some of the guitarists below are well established and are on tours with major artists – while others are just getting started. The common ground between them all, is they've all been stirring up a lot of buzz on Instagram, which in the past two years has become a hotbed for upcoming talent.

We're betting they'll have a ton of exciting projects popping up in 2018 and beyond.

Jake Curran

We've been watching Irish guitarist Jake Curran go from strength to strength over the past 2 years, so it was no surprise to us when he announced he would be touring full time with fellow Irishman, Niall Horan (One Direction). Jake's one of the most versatile and humble guitarists we've discovered through Instagram. Be on the lookout for his work with Niall Horan, Lisa Lambe, and expect some original material later this year.

Ruben Wan

LA-based guitarist/producer Ruben Wan has long been on the Instagram guitar hustle and is well known among musicians on the platform, but he recently began to pop off in a big way with his highly creative vertical guitar videos. These hyper-creative masterpieces regularly get thousands of views and are easily some of the most well-produced and engaging guitar content we've seen in a while.

Tiana Ohara

Recently, we've been captivated by a young guitarist out of LA named Tiana Ohara. There's something striking and sincere about her neo-soul and jazz-influenced videos, which regularly get 100k+ views and tons of love from music fans. Part of being successful in an online world is your visual aesthetic, as well as your musicality. When you have both, like Tiana, that's when virality (the good kind) starts to happen.

Matt Zara

18-year-old UK guitarist/producer Matt Zara is one the most exciting new talents we've seen emerge out of the Instagram music ecosystem. His intricately filmed and well-produced videos get thousands of views and are shared widely among curated Instagram accounts. Already, with just a few videos, we can see Matt has the creative vision and chops to take his music as far as he wants.

Benjamin Totten

Don't sleep on young UK guitarist Benjamin Totten, guitar player for one of 2017's most hyped and talented new artists, Jorja Smith. You can hear his work on Jorja's acoustic version of "On My Mind" or on any live video of Jorja, which is how we discovered him. This dude can play, and he's just getting started.

Nicholas Veinoglou

You'll instantly recognize a video from LA-based guitarist and music director Nicholas Veinoglou. His blue hair and quirky videos have become some of the most shared and loved guitar videos online. Nicholas landed a major artist gig (Jordan Fisher) which had him opening for Alicia Keys, JoJo, The Commodores, and Allen Stone. We're excited to see his next moves, online and in the touring/session space.

Sus Vásquez

One of the most promising new voices in instrumental guitar music is Colombian guitarist Sus Vásquez. She performed with Latin singer artist Karol G playing sold-out shows across South America, as well as making the Top 5 of the Kiesel Guitar Contest (2016).