Guitarist Robert Trent to perform March 11 on campus

Classical guitarist Robert Trent will present a free concert at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 11, in Ladd Concert Hall of the Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College.

Trent, who performs on a 10-string guitar in the manner of Johann Scherzer (ca. 1850), will perform works by Coste, Sor, Ponce, Mertz, and Trent.  

Trent has performed on the continents of North and South America and in Europe, playing on modern guitar, Renaissance lute and on an original French guitar from the early 19th century, and a reproduction of a 10-string double-necked romantic guitar of Schertzer. Trent has appeared in chamber music recitals or concerti with the Audubon Quartet and the Kandinsky Trio and the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra.

He has been a first prize-winner in numerous national and international competitions, including the Webb National Guitar Competition, the Masterworks Young Artist Competition and the chamber music prize at the International Competition "Arturo Toscanini" in Italy. In addition, Trent recently Russia.

Sought after as an expert in performance practice of the early 19th-century, he has contributed improvised cadenzas in the style of Fernando Sor to the new Mel Bay text (melbay.com) "Complete Sonatas of Diabelli, Giuliani and Sor, Vol. 1."

The first recipient of the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in guitar from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Trent is currently director of Guitar and Renaissance Lute studies at the College of Visual and Performing Arts of Radford University. He is a recording artist for Dorian Records .

In addition to his own solo recitals, he performs regularly with forte pianist Pamela Swenson (as Duo Firenze). In past summers Duo Firenze have been in residence as performers and teachers in period instrument performance at the "Accademia L'Ottocento" in Rome and Verbania

Duo Firenze is the recent recipient of numerous awards including unprecedented two-career grants from the Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Conservatory, two faculty development Grants from Radford University, and two awards from the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Their first Dorian CD is titled Italian Nocturnes: EarlyRomantic Music for Guitar and Fortepiano(catalogue no: DIS 80156).