James Lorusso

Guitar

James Lorusso is the president and founder of Friends of Narciso Yepes. Mr. Lorusso has devoted most of his life to the guitar for the past 40 years, as a performer, teacher, arranger, and composer. He has taught at the Music Conservatory of Westchester since 1973, Manhattanville College since 1976, and Westchester Community College since 1993. He has also taught at Marymount College and the American Institute of Guitar. His love of Renaissance and Baroque music, arranging works from piano, harpsichord, and lute (for the guitar), and his studies with Narciso Yepes led him to play the 10-string guitar in 1978. He still performs on both the traditional 6-string as well as the 10-string guitar. His first formal classical guitar recital was in 1972, at Manhattanville College's Reid Hall, known as the Castle. After that first Manhattanville concert, Jim's performances gradually increased throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Spain. James Lorusso is a graduate of the Music Conservatory of Westchester, through its collaboration with Mercy College, where he was the recipient of a Conservatory scholarship as well as a scholarship from the Epstein Fine Arts Fund. He studied guitar with Leo Brouwer, Alirio Diaz, Angel Romero, Manuel Barrueco, and Alice Artzt, and musical interpretation with renowned pianist Bruce Hungerford. He has also studied in Spain with guitarists Narciso Yepes and Jose-Luis Lopategui. Mr. Lorusso was a prizewinner in the 1983 international guitar competition at the Festival Internacional de Guitarra de Puerto Rico, and made his New York debut at CAMI Hall in 1984. He was featured in September 2008 edition of Classical Guitar magazine in the column "Letter From New York" by Julia Crowe, giving an account of his friendship with the late guitar maker, Thomas Humphrey. Mr. Lorusso's webpage: http://www.jameslorusso.com/