Matthew Slotkin will perform a solo classical guitar recital on Wednesday, Oct. 11, at 7 p.m. in K.S. Gross Auditorium in Carver Hall. The program will include beloved works by Spanish composers, including Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla, and music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Francis Poulenc, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Matthew Slotkin, associate professor of music, is an acclaimed performer who has appeared in leading venues on six continents and has directed the guitar program at Bloomsburg since 2004. Admission to the concert is free.
Slotkin's commitment to contemporary music has resulted in the premieres of numerous works by composers, including Olga Amelkina-Vera, John Anthony Lennon, Scott Lindroth, John Orfe, and many others. His festival performances include concerts at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, the Walled City Music Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival, the Chautauqua Institution, the Guitar Foundation of America, and the World Saxophone Congresses in Croatia, Scotland, Thailand and Slovenia.
He has performed on numerous classical guitar society concert series, including New Zealand (GANZ), Montreal, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Iowa, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes. He has given performances with many prominent chamber ensembles, including the Atlantic Guitar Quartet, Cantata Profana, Dez Cordas, Duo Montagnard, Mallarmé Chamber Players, Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and Metropolis Ensemble. Recordings on the Summit, Centaur, and Liscio labels have been praised as “wonderful…a very enjoyable disc” (Soundboard) and “a magnificent achievement…the concept of this program is brilliant” (American Record Guide). Soundboard magazine called him an “exceptional” player and a recent concert review from the Classical Voice of North Carolina states that “Slotkin performed brilliantly.”
Slotkin has given masterclasses at numerous institutions and festivals, including the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, Victorian College of the Arts (Australia), ESMAE (Portugal), National University of La Plata (Argentina), the Alexandria Guitar Festival, and many others. He received the Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Music, and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied guitar with Nicholas Goluses.