An explosive highlight of the 2010 Adelaide Guitar Festival, Costa plays alongside Pepe Romero.

Why do you feel that Brazil has embraced the guitar so wholeheartedly?

I think that popular song has chosen the guitar. In popular culture across the world, the guitar is the instrument base and the main support for the music composers. In Brazil the European immigration blended with the black culture and created, what we could call, a school of Brazilian guitar. The same happened everywhere it arrived, like the creation of the Brazilian instrument, there is the Argentinian guitar, American guitar, and so on.

What advantages does the seven-string guitar have over the standard six-stringed instrument?

The advantage is that the one more string brings other options of tuning and lots of other possibilities for the instrument. Each day the seven-string guitar conquers more space, and more musicians want to play it, mainly in Latin America.

Australia has a very strong guitar scene, and you’ve worked with Doug de Vries in the past – will you be working in the future with any other Australian musicians?

I enjoyed every experience I had with Australian musicians and I hope to play with them again. Playing with Doug de Vries...