Biography | Sergio Sorrentino Guitarist

Sergio Sorrentino is “one of the most important contemporary italian guitarists” (RAI Radio Tre). As a performer he promotes the classical guitar and electric guitar contemporary repertory.
As a composer and improviser his music is based on sonic research and combines elements of contemporary classical music, minimalism, avant-garde, ambient, experimental.

His CD Dream - American Music for Electric Guitar (Mode Records) contains works for electric guitar by John Cage, David Lang, Jack Vees, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Curran (a new piece especially written for this CD), Morton Feldman (world premiere recording on physical CD of "The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar"), Christian Wolff (complete works for solo electric guitar and the world premiere of "Going West"), Larry Polansky, Van Stiefel. Dream was reviewed and highlighted in the New York Times by Seth Colter Walls as one of the "Week’s Best Classical Music Moments”.

Philip Glass published on December 2020 Sergio Sorrentino's video performance of "Orphée's Bedroom" on his official channels for the #glassminutes series. Orange Mountain Music released "Orphée's Bedroom" Single on all digital platforms on January 2021; Single is earning a lot of success.

Sergio plays with the great Gavin Bryars as a member of the Gavin Bryars Italian Ensemble and he plays in duo with Elliott Sharp and John King.
He studied with Francesco Langone, Angelo Gilardino, Mario Dell'Ara, Leo Brouwer, Mark White (Berklee College of Music Summer Course) and composition with Marco Di Bari. In 2010 he obtained the Academic Guitar Diploma with Honors at the Novara Conservatory, with a thesis on Italian avant-garde guitar music. Sorrentino started his international concert career very early and has held solo concerts and master classes in many important festivals and venues (Yale University, Sprague Hall in New Haven, Spectrum in New York, Festival de Música Contemporánea de La Habana in Casa de Las Américas, Cuba, Italian Cultural Institute of Paris, Sala Biala of the Wilanow Museum (Warsaw, Poland), International Guitar Research Conference/University of Surrey (UK), Vortex in London, Performance Room of Luxembourg, Highscore Festival, Filharmonia Gorzowska Concert Hall, ON Cologne Neue Musik Festival, In Situ Art Society in Bonn, Spectrum in Berlin, Music Society of La Scala Theater of Milan, Goldoni Theater of Venice, Nuova Consonanza Festival in Rome, Lagonegro International Guitar Festival, Società del Quartetto of Vercelli, Auditorium Renzo Piano of L'Aquila, SpazioMusica Festival of Cagliari, Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, AngelicA Festival of Bologna, etc.). In 2012 he performed, with the Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” for guitar and orchestra with Cecilia Rodrigo, the composer's daughter, as a special guest).

He has worked with important composers and musicians like Sylvano Bussotti, Azio Corghi, Bruno Canino, Alda Caiello, John Russell, Machinefabriek, Steven Mackey, Andrzej

Bauer, Marco Angius, Giorgio Battistelli, Carlo Boccadoro, Mauro Bonifacio, I Solisti Aquilani. He plays in duo with the great contemporary music guitarist Magnus Andersson and with the vibraphone player Antonio Caggiano. He has debuted many new guitar solo compositions (in concert and on CD). Many composers including Alvin Curran, Mark Delpriora (Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard), Mauro Montalbetti, Stefano Taglietti, Gavin Bryars, Tom Armstrong (University of Surrey, UK) have written special pieces just for him.

Van Stiefel (West Chester University) composed especially for Sorrentino “Bound”, a Concerto for electric guitar and orchestra.

As a sound artist he has made performances and sound installations at MACRO, Palazzo Merulana, Mercati di Traiano (Rome), Art Site Fest (Turin) and he has made performances for Baldo Diodato exhibitions and Gillo Dorfles exhibition (Palazzo Reale, Milan).

Sorrentino has recorded for Mode Records, Rai Trade, Creative Sources, Silta Records, Carish, Curci, Sinfonica, Aton Records, Fratto9, Setola di Maiale. He released CDs based on contemporary classical guitar music (Tempus Fugit, pieces by Maderna, Corghi, McKenna Lee, Cifariello Ciardi and others), New Music for electric guitar (Music from a parallel world, pieces by Taglietti, Corghi, Montalbetti, Canino, De Rossi Re, Franco), impro and electronic projects (among others Vignettes with Machinefabriek). Sorrentino also released the Sylvano Bussotti Complete Music for Solo Guitar, including the World Premiere of Popolaresca, an unedited manuscript by Bussotti. As a composer, he has won the First Edition of the International Competition of Guitar Composition “Goffredo Petrassi” of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, with the piece "De Citharae Natura" for solo guitar.

He published the acclaimed book about the electric guitar classical repertoire "La chitarra elettrica nella musica da concerto" (Arcana).

Casa Ricordi and Universal have published his transcriptions for classical and electric guitar of the Azio Corghi’s compositions "Tang' Jok(Guitar)" and "De Nocturno Visu".

He teaches master class in contemporary classical and electric music for several international Festivals and Academies.

Some Reviews:

“The electric guitar in concert music is in wonderful hands with Sergio Sorrentino. He plays with virtuosity, sensitivity, and intelligence. We can look to him to continue the growth of the concert electric guitar’s reputation and the expansion of its repertoire” (Steven Mackey)

"Sergio Sorrentino has performed many of my works for guitar, and also my ensemble pieces that include the guitar and I have the greatest admiration for his work in this respect. I have also performed with him in a number of concerts in Italy and I have enjoyed very much our collaboration. He understands very well my music and plays it with great sensitivity and creative insight. I look forward to many more projects together in the future." (Gavin Bryars - Billesdon October 8 2018)

“Great Musician” (Ben Verdery -

Yale School of Music)

"Sergio really is one of the best guitarists I have ever met, and I have met a lot of great guitarists! He has accomplished so much, but it is really nothing to what he will do, I predict. Sergio is ambitious, not simply for himself, but for “music.” He really cares about the thing itself; it’s inspiring to be around that kind of energy and dedication. When I compose for the electric guitar, I tend to require sounds that can only be played fingerstyle. At same time, I need guitarists like Sergio who also understand the timbres of the electric guitar, its tone, special techniques, etc. This may seem surprising, but there are still only a few players in the world well versed in all of these things"

(Van Stiefel)

"Sergio Sorrentino's version of Dancetracks is excellent! Full of interesting choices, works well with the electronic part, subtle and not over the top. He paces it well and it ends at just the right moment - it does not seem too long, not too short. Sergio Sorrentino is a terrific guitarist and thanks again to Sergio for his terrific work" (Paul Lansky - Princeton University)

"What is quickly apparent in Sergio's playing is that he is in a very rarefied class of musicians. The traditional sense of "instrument" extends way beyond the fingers and strings. His innate musicality flows out, and though whatever devices he and his guitar are hooked to, and he plays the whole system as his instrument. It's never just instrument with added electronics or effects. It's all part of one bigger musical vision of his that takes it all in, and returns it all back, with wonderful results"

(Jack Vees - Yale School of Music)

“Thanks to Sergio Sorrentino for

amazingly playing contemporary

music!” (Leo Brouwer)

“Album of immense artistic stature that opens to the new horizons of classical guitar, building a bridge between the recent past and near future” (Rockerilla - Italian National Music Magazine, about the CD “Tempus Fugit”)

"Ho conosciuto Sergio Sorrentino innanzitutto come bravissimo interprete di Consonancias y redobles. All’audizione, in concerto, mi sono chiesto perché la sua esecuzione corrispondesse tanto fedelmente alla mia idea compositiva. Dando per scontato che, per la realizzazione di un particolare tipo di scrittura chitarristica, non debbano sussistere ostacoli di natura tecnica, c’era tuttavia qualcosa di particolarmente “intrigante” nella sua lettura. L’ho scoperto in seguito, leggendo il testo che mi riguarda da lui pubblicato per “il Fronimo”. Di qui la risposta al mio interrogativo: esistono interpreti che al virtuosismo strumentale uniscono la necessaria capacità di analisi storico-critica al fine di scoprire le radici dell’idea che informa l’opera". (Azio Corghi)

“A Six-string Poet” (Guitart Magazine)

- A great guitarist [...] one of the most important exponents on the Italian guitar scene." (La Stampa, Italian national newspaper).

“Finally a guitar album made by a guitarist who doesn't want to emulate Wes Montgomery, Segovia, or Jimmy Page. Sergio Sorrentino, visionary experimental musician, collects in this album 14 fragments, digressions on the electric guitar sound, like Fred Frith did in the album Guitar Solos. The first track "The Sea is Waiting" combines noise, musique concrète, open guitar sounds. It's our favourite track together with "The End Of The Rain". This album will be fascinating not only to the guitarist who know the semantic possibility of the instrument, but also to every fan of New Music”. (Rockerilla - Italian National Music Magazine, about the CD “Behind the Window”)

“One of the things that marks a great performance is the ability of the performer to transcend the material, and imbue it with a sense of effortless expression. The music needs to flow as if the performer were speaking his own native language. Sorrentino has achieved that level of fluency with Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea, and in this sense, has captured the essence of what originally inspired the piece — the spirit of Jimi Hendrix.” (Andrew McKenna Lee)

"Sergio Sorrentino explores, with commendable skill, the expressive possibilities of the instrument". (Il Messagero, Italian national newspaper)

"Sergio Sorrentino has earned considerable praise for his interpretation of Luciano Berio's Sequenza XI for guitar solo at the Auditorium of the Conservatory of Novara during a concert of the International Guitar Festival “Guitar World” of Novara. Particularly, the public and the critics appreciated his ability to take a very complex piece like Sequenza and contemporary guitar music in general, available to all listeners". (Chitarre e dintorni).

Biografia in Italiano

SERGIO SORRENTINO (1983), chitarrista e compositore, è considerato dalla critica “uno dei più importanti chitarristi dediti alla Nuova Musica” (Rai RadioTre) e “il miglior chitarrista elettrico al mondo per la musica classica” («il manifesto»). Alterna l’attività di interprete di Nuova Musica contemporanea a quella di musicista sperimentale e sound artist.

Ha inciso per Mode Records (New York) con le quali ha pubblicato "Dream", cd interamente dedicato al repertorio americano per chitarra elettrica sola. L'album contiene musiche per chitarra elettrica (molte in prima registrazione assoluta) di John Cage, David Lang, Jack Vees, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Curran (un brano scritto appositamente per questo CD), Morton Feldman (la prima incisione assoluta su cd fisico di "The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar"), Christian Wolff (l'opera completa per chitarra elettrica sola e la "prima" di "Going West"), Larry Polansky, Van Stiefel.

Il CD è stato recensito, tra gli altri, anche dal New York Times, che ha inserito il CD tra "i migliori momenti di musica classica della settimana".

La sua versione per chitarra elettrica di "Orphée's Bedroom" di Philip Glass è stata pubblicata dall'etichetta del grande compositore americano (Orange Mountain Music) ottenendo un grande successo di pubblico e di critica.

Si è esibito come solista e solista con orchestra in tutto il mondo nelle sale da concerto e per i Festival più prestigiosi: Sprague Hall (Yale University), Spectrum (New York City), Festival de Musica Contemporanea (La Habana, Casa de las Americas), Sala Biala del Palazzo Wilanow (Varsavia), International Guitar Research Conference (University of Surrey - Inghilterra), Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi, ON Koln Neue Musik Festival, In Situ Art Society (Bonn), Spektrum (Berlino), Vortex (Londra), Teatro Dal Verme (Milano), Teatro Goldoni (Venezia), ISL Performance Hall (Lussemburgo), Filharmonia Gorzowska (Gorzow, Polonia), Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, Festival Nuova Consonanza (Roma), Festival Internazionale della Chitarra di Lagonegro, Auditorium Renzo Piano (L’Aquila) Stagione dei Solisti Aquilani. Suona con il grande compositore Gavin Bryars come membro del Gavin Bryars Italian Ensemble ed ha collaborato con importanti musicisti quali John King, Magnus Andersson, Daniele Roccato, Nicola Sani, Sylvano Bussotti, Bruno Canino, Alda Caiello, Steven Mackey, Azio Corghi, Giorgio Battistelli, Piotr Borkowski, Carlo Boccadoro, Machinefabriek, John Russell, Marco Angius, I Solisti Aquilani. Suona regolarmente in duo con il percussionista Antonio Caggiano e con il leggendario chitarrista americano Elliott Sharp. Grandi compositori quali Gavin Bryars, Alvin Curran, Mark Delpriora (Manhattan School e Juilliard), Tom Armstrong (Università del Surrey), Andrew McKenna Lee hanno scritto brani appositamente per lui. Il compositore statunitense Van Stiefel (West Chester University) gli ha dedicato Bound (Concerto per chitarra elettrica e orchestra). Sorrentino ha tenuto la prima esecuzione mondiale del Concerto a Vercelli, nell'ambito della stagione concertistica 2015 della Società del Quartetto. Come sound artist ha dato vita a performances e installazioni sonore al MACRO, a Palazzo Merulana, ai Mercati di Traiano (Roma), Art Site Fest (Torino) ed è stato protagonista di performances nelle mostre di Baldo Diodato e Gillo Dorfles (Palazzo Reale, Milano). E' autore del libro "La chitarra elettrica nella musica da concerto" (Arcana), testo di riferimento del repertorio elettrico.

Ha inciso anche per RaiCom, Radio Rai, Rai5 (trasmissione Lezioni di Suono), Mode, Orange Mountain Music, RMN Classical, Suoni Possibili, Creative Sources (Lisbona), Ants Records e pubblicato opere per Casa Ricordi/Universal, Sinfonica, Ars Publica, Sconfinarte. In particolare hanno riscosso notevole successo di critica i suoi CD “Tempus Fugit” (musiche di Maderna, McKenna Lee, Cifariello Ciardi, Corghi, Pisati ed altri), “Spillà” (in duo con Elliott Sharp - Ants Records), “Sylvano Bussotti Complete Music for Solo Guitar” (opera omnia per chitarra di Bussotti, con la prima incisione assoluta di Popolaresca), “Vignettes” (lavoro di musica elettronica in duo con il musicista olandese Machinefabriek). Il suo brano De Citharae Natura è stato premiato al I Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Chitarristica "Goffredo Petrassi" del Conservatorio "Santa Cecilia" di Roma. Ha studiato con Francesco Langone, Angelo Gilardino, Mario Dell'Ara, Leo Brouwer, Mark White (Berklee College of Music) e composizione con Marco Di Bari. Ha conseguito il Diploma Accademico-Concertistico di II Livello in Chitarra presso il Conservatorio di Novara con il massimo dei voti discutendo una Tesi sul repertorio italiano del Novecento e contemporaneo. E' titolare del Corso di Perfezionamento del Festival Internazionale della Chitarra di Lagonegro e di numerose Master Class sul repertorio contemporaneo per chitarra classica e chitarra elettrica.

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