LENTINI James

Award-winning composer and classical guitarist James Lentini is a recipient of the Andrés Segovia International Composition Prize, the Atwater-Kent Composition Award (first prize), the McHugh Composition Prize, a grant from “Meet the Composer,” a Hanson Institute of American Music composer-performer grant, and multiple awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, and his compositions have been performed and recorded by international ensembles, including the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad de Concepción (Chile), and the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra. James Lentini’s composition for solo guitar, Westward Voyage, was commissioned by guitarist William Kanengiser of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and was awarded the Andrés Segovia Composition Prize in 2002 at the International Andrés Segovia Guitar Competition held in La Herradura, Spain. The following year, he was invited to serve on the jury of the Segovia Guitar Competition and Composition Competition alongside renowned composer-guitarist Leo Brouwer. Reviewing Westward Voyage for Classical Guitar Magazine, Stephen Kenyon wrote: “the composer clearly knows the fingerboard very well indeed and is expert at finding scintillating resonant mixtures of open and stopped strings.” James Lentini’s Lentini’s Concerto for Guitar and Strings was recorded by guitarist Iliana Matos with the Zagreb Festival Orchestra for release on the Navona recording label in 2019. Recordings of his works appear on the Azica, Capstone, CRS, and Naxos recording labels and his suite entitled The Four Seasons for Guitar is published by Mel Bay and appears on a recording featuring James Lentini on guitar with his wife, soprano Dana Lentini. Gramophone Magazine has called James Lentini an “American classical music success story,” while calling his composition Scenes from Sedona “…perhaps the best piece for viola and cello since Beethoven’s ‘Eyeglasses’ Duet.”  James Lentini has held faculty and administrative positions at Wayne State University, The College of New Jersey, and Miami University, and he currently serves as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at Oakland University.