James Lentini

James Lentini is a composer, guitarist, and educator whose music has been performed by a number of American artists as well as international ensembles. His compositions span most genres: vocal, choral, chamber music, and orchestral. Lentini was born in Detroit on February 7, 1958. He studied composition and classical guitar at Wayne State University and composition at Michigan State University, then received his doctorate in composition from the University of Southern California, where one of his teachers was Morten Lauridsen. Another of his teachers, William Kanengiser, commissioned Lentini's Westward Voyage, the work that won the 2002 Segovia International Composition Prize. In addition to other music for guitar, such as The Four Seasons (2005-2006), Lentini has written for chorus, for orchestra, and for a variety of mixed instrument chamber ensembles: Orchestra Hall Suite (1995), for bassoon, violin, viola, and cello, encapsulates the history of Detroit's Orchestra Hall. The Orchestra Hall Suite and a few other chamber music works are found on a 2010 Naxos release. Lentini has taught at Wayne State University and the College of New Jersey and served as the dean of Miami University's School of Creative Arts in Ohio. In 2020, he became president of Molloy College. That same year, Through Time and Place, a collection of some of his orchestral music, including his Symphony No. 1, was released by Navona Records.
© Patsy Morita /TiVo