sergio sorrentino bio

Sergio Sorrentino "A Superb Musician" (The Wire)

Sorrentino is acclaimed as "the best concert music electric guitarist" (Il Manifesto) and “one of the most important contemporary guitarists” (RAI Radio Tre).

His CD Dream - American Music for Electric Guitar (Mode Records) 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" as a Single on all digital platforms on January 2021; the Single is earning a lot of success.

Sergio plays with the great Gavin Bryars ("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") as a member of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble and he plays live and in studio with Elliott Sharp and John King. He has worked with important musicians like Christian Wolff, Loren Connors, Alvin Curran, John Russell, Machinefabriek, David Lang, Steven Mackey, Van Stiefel, Scott Fields, Tim Brady, Paul Lansky, Magnus Andersson, Antonio Caggiano, Nicola Sani, I Solisti Aquilani, Giorgio Battistelli and many others. Sergio’s recording of David Lang’s “Questionnaire” has been highlighted in the Bandcamp New and Notable section and it has been included by the historian Ted Gioia in his Top 100 Recordings of 2021. As a soloist, Sergio Sorrentino started his international concert career very early and has held solo concerts and master classes in many important festivals and venues (like 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, Filharmonia Gorzowska Concert Hall, ON Cologne Neue Musik Festival, In Situ Art Society in Bonn, Specktrum in Berlin, Nuova Consonanza Festival in Rome, Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, AngelicA Festival of Bologna, etc.).

“A superb musician” (The Wire)

“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 per- formed with him in a number of concerts in Italy and I have en- joyed 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)

“What fascinates of a musician like Sergio is his in some ways amazing ability to excite. The guitarist can literally make the instrument sing, like a human voice. He manages to make him cry, to make him contort, to make the sound even something transcendent and mystical. As if the guitar were an extreme but not foreign prosthesis of his body”.

(Blow Up Magazine)

“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 – Princeton University)

“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 am- bitious, 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 Sor- rentino 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)