This is the second time that we have experienced a Festival performance by Andrew York in Bermuda. Saint Andrew's Church was packed. Andrew is a major guitar composer and virtuoso performer at the height of his powers and on Saturday he played largely from his own compositions.

His guitar sound is a rich baritone which works with the sonorities of the instrument and brings out its natural strengths. He plays wrapped in deep concentration, eyes closed, with obvious technical mastery of the instrument but also as someone who, I feel, is reaching out into a different dimension to bring us the music. All York's music also has a characteristic feeling of place. It may be the harmonic structures or the way Andrew voices his open strings but, to my mind, his music is deeply and spiritually rooted in the West Coast of the United States.

The first three pieces were sketches based on places which Andrew has visited: Ireland in 'Skerries', the redwoods of California in 'Avenue of the Giants' and Spain in 'Call'. This last is a Sephardic Jewish piece inspired by the old Jewish quarters of Cordoba and Granada in southern Spain.

The music took me back to the ruined synagogue of Cordoba, with its crumbling Hebrew letters round the walls forming fragments of the Psalms of David, a poignant echo of a vanished community.

Three new pieces followed, composed for guitarist Robert Bluestone and his wife Rebecca, whose chosen form of artistic expression is the woven tapestry. First, 'Squares suspended', a meditative and tender piece examining the finished visible woven design elements, executed in an unobtrusive but quite brilliant Pythagorean numerological homage to the "square".

Next, 'Warp – Aspect 2', revealing the hidden energies which go to make the woven cloth (The Warp), which is invisible to the beholder of the finished object, but without which it would not exist.

Last, 'Woven World', the finished object, a lyrical blend of warp and weft.

York's finished the first half with another new composition, 'Letting Go'. It's not a harmonically chordally complex piece, being in built round the chords of E, A and B. Oldsters will remember the Brit rock guitarist Bert Weedon's 'Play in a Day', the Rock Bible for aspiring guitarists in the 1950s which is built round the same structure.

York's piece is technically challenging. It does what it says: it's an emotional workout aimed at letting go of a phase, a relationship, an endeavour, what you will, and moving on to the next thing that life has to offer. A profound way to complete the first half of the concert.

Andrew has a vision of Bach's 'Cello Suites' not shared by many of the distinguished previous arrangers of this material for guitar: he ignores everything except the single line of the Cello music, tunes his guitar to exactly the tuning of the Cello (how he manages to get a string meant for E to sound ok in C is a mystery), and plays it all exactly as it was originally written. His interpretation of the Third Suite's last four movements is wonderful. My only regret is that he didn't include the prelude to give us the complete work.

Andrew has performed his complete seven movement suite 'Kinderlight' in Bermuda before. It's a beautiful series of childhood sketches, which builds on the same thinking that Schumann used for the Kinderszenen.

The arrival of Andrew's daughter Maija has revalidated this music and has lent an added relevance. Finally, Andrew gave us his most famous and technically demanding piece, 'Sunburst'. Joyous, playful, carefree and yet spiritual, this is and remains York's defining work. And nobody can play it as he can.