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“I try to not think about styles or genres,� he said Thursday during a phone call from a concert stop in New Mexico. “If there’s music I like, I just listen.�

But what you might hear when Mancuso introduces himself to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ at his concert on Sunday is an amalgam of the musical styles that have influenced his playing since he picked up his first guitar at age 10.

“I borrowed a lot of things from jazz and, of course, I started out as a rock player,� said Mancuso, the son of well-known Italian guitarist and producer Vincenzo Mancuso. “My first introduction to guitar was a lot of ‘70s rock bands, people like Deep Purple and Zeppelin. My first big influence was Jimi Hendrix.�

His father was his first teacher and Mancuso found himself imitating the senior Mancuso’s quasi-flamenco/classical right-hand picking technique when he played classical guitar.

“I just thought that every guitar was meant to be played like that,� said the Palermo, Sicily, native. “I didn’t know that you should use a pick for electric guitar and fingers with classical guitar. I didn’t know about this difference ... so I just pick two fingers all the way, both with electric and classical. It’s just rare to see this technique applied on the electric guitar.�

Mancuso, who started performing on stage at 11 and made his professional debut at the Castelbuono Jazz Festival in Sicily at age 12, studied classical guitar and transverse flute in high school before focusing on jazz guitar at the Palermo Conservatory of Music; he graduated with honors when he was 22.

In the years since, he has performed throughout Italy and at a number of festivals. In winter 2024, he made his North American debut with five shows including in Los Angeles and Chicago, introducing audiences to his unique style of music.

“I like to describe it as trying to channel the power of rock with the harmonic colors of jazz, and that’s one of my favorite descriptions about my kind of music,� he said. “It’s rock and jazz and everything in between.�

On May 20, he and his trio that includes a bass player and drummer launched their biggest trek to date, a 31-city North American tour that kicked off in Boston and ends in Montreal on June 30; the tour stops in Phoenix on Saturday before Sunday’s 8 p.m. show at Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St.

“American audience is really great and I really appreciate the fact that there’s a lot of space also for instrumental music,� Mancuso said. “We do instrumental music without the singer and for some countries, it’s a little bit strange to hear it. But America, I mean, as far as my experience, I really had a lot of attention to this instrumental music that we do.�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ guitarist opens Sunday’s show. Tickets are $39.50-$64.95 through .