What connection does Zorro, the masked avenger, have with Buffalo? The answer is Esteban, perhaps the most reknowned Spanish guitarist in the US today. Still perplexed? Well, for starters, he performs in Buffalo this Friday in his trademark, Zorro-esque attire. But there’s more: He also hails from rival steel city, Pittsburgh. The son of a steelmill worker, Esteban, a.k.a. Stephen Paul, is mainly self-taught. There was no guitar master on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a guitar/English major, but he was relentless and became a rising star of the flamenco guitar—until a car accident disabled his left arm for most of a decade. Like many of us down on our luck in the Rust Belt, Esteban surmounted great odds to regain enough dexterity in his injured arm to become an undisputed master of the gypsy guitar. Today he shares his guitar-made-easy technique with thousands via DVDs, plus his own line of affordable/playable guitars. Even if you’ve never heard his many chart-topping CDs, you may have caught him performing on the Shopping Network, where he’s become a musical icon.

Friday, October 19 at 8pm. Buffalo State’s Rockwell Hall, 1300 Elmwood Avenue(878-3005, buffalostate.edu/pac).

$27-$30, $15 students