Concert Series

Buy a Season Subscription — Four Concerts for the Price of Three!

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Sunday, 26 October 2025 | Leonela Alejandro, First Prize Winner of the Guitar Foundation of America 2024 Competition

3:00 pm | First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus

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Leonela Alejandro is an award-winning classical guitarist from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has garnered attention as a soloist, captivating audiences with her powerful and energetic performance style. She has been invited to perform in numerous venues in the United States and Europe, including the Latino Arts Guitar Festival, Northern Illinois University International Guitar Concert Series, Southern Guitar Festival, Florida Guitar Festival, and José Tomás Villa de Petrer Guitar Festival.

Leonela has also placed in over a dozen competitions in the United States, with more than ten first-prize placements including the Guitar Foundation of America International Artist Competition, Louisville Guitar Festival, Appalachian State Guitar Festival, Columbus State University Guitar Symposium, Indiana Guitar Festival, and Chicago Guitar Festival, among others.

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Saturday, 10 January 2026 | Gruca White Ensemble, flute and guitar duo 7:30 pm | Huntington Recital Hall, Capital University

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Expanding the boundaries of the standard classical experience, the Gruca White Ensemble engages audiences with their creative programming and energetic performances.  Featuring music from multiple cultures and genres, they seek out rarely-heard works from around the globe, foster their connections with local composers, and create unique renditions of rock, world, and Latin music.  Classical guitarist Robert Gruca and flutist Linda White are comfortable with both written and improvised musical forms and draw from the entirety of their musical experiences, including rock bands, conservatory training, jazz studies, and new music.  The ensemble earned rave reviews for their debut album A Different Take, released on Big Round Records in 2020.  ”It’s been a thrilling ride around the world…the only common denominator is the superb musicianship and high octane playing of the Gruca White Ensemble”. (Music Web-International March 2021).  Robert and Linda are both graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Music and teach at The Music Settlement in Cleveland.

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Saturday, 7 February 2026 | An Tran in Concert

7:30 pm | Huntington Recital Hall, Capital University

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Hailed by The Boston Globe for his “subtle, graceful virtuosity”, guitarist An Tran captivates audiences with his musicality and artistry. An has performed at major venues worldwide, spanning four continents. His debut album, entitled “Stay, My Beloved”, features music of his native country of Vietnam and was praised by Classical Guitar Magazine as “an unforgettable journey to a world you’ve probably never been to”. His second recording was praised by the American Record Guide for his “immaculate ornaments and cultivated sense of phrasing”. This will be his Columbus debut.

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Saturday, 2 May 2026 | David Leisner, celebrated concert guitarist and composer in recital

7:30 pm | Huntington Recital Hall, Capital University

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David Leisner is an extraordinarily versatile musician with a multi-faceted career as an electrifying performing artist, a distinguished composer, and a master teacher.

“Among the finest guitarists of all time”, according to American Record Guide, David Leisner’s career began auspiciously with top prizes in both the 1975 Toronto and 1981 Geneva International Guitar Competitions. His recent seasons have taken him around the US, including his solo debut with the Atlanta Symphony, a major tour of Australia and New Zealand, and debuts and reappearances in China, Japan, the Philippines, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, the U.K., Italy, Czech Republic, Greece, Puerto Rico and Mexico. An innovative three-concert series at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall included the first all-Bach guitar recital in New York’s history, and currently he is the Artistic Director of Guitar Plus, a New York series devoted to chamber music with the guitar. He has also performed chamber music at the Santa Fe, Music in the Vineyards, Vail Valley, Crested Butte, Rockport, Cape and Islands, Bargemusic, Bay Chamber, Maui, Portland, Sitka and Angel Fire Festivals, with Zuill Bailey, Tara O’Connor, Eugenia Zukerman, Kurt Ollmann, Lucy Shelton, Ida Kavafian, the St. Lawrence, Enso, Escher and Vermeer Quartets and many others. Celebrated for expanding the guitar repertoire, David Leisner has premiered works by many important composers, including David Del Tredici, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, Richard Rodney Bennett, Peter Sculthorpe, Osvaldo Golijov, Randall Woolf, Gordon Beeferman and Carlos Carillo, while championing the works of neglected 19th-century guitar composers J.K. Mertz and Wenzeslaus Matiegka.

A featured recording artist for Azica Records, Leisner has released 9 highly acclaimed CDs, including the most recent, Arpeggione with cellist Zuill Bailey, and Facts of Life, featuring the premiere recordings of commissioned works by Del Tredici and Golijov.  Naxos produced his recording of the Hovhaness Guitar Concertowith Gerard Schwarz and the Berlin Radio Orchestra. Other CDs include the Koch recording of Haydn Quartet in D with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Hovhaness Spirit of Trees for Telarc with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. And Mel Bay Co. released a solo concert DVD called Classics and Discoveries.

 Mr. Leisner is also a highly respected composer noted for the emotional and dramatic power of his music. Fanfare magazine described it as “rich in invention and melody, emotionally direct, and beautiful”. South Florida Classical Review called him “an original and arresting compositional voice.” Recent commissioners include Pepe Romero for a guitar concerto, Rob Nathanson for the New Music Festival at UNC Wilmington, Cavatina Duo, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, Arc Duo, Stones River Chamber Players (TN), Fairfield Orchestra (CT), Red Cedar Chamber Music (IA), and the Twentieth Century Unlimited Series (NM). Recordings of his works are currently available on the Sony Classical, ABC, Dorian, Azica, Cedille, Centaur, Town Hall, Signum, Acoustic Music, Athena and Barking Dog labels. The Cavatina Duo’s recording of his complete works for flute and guitar, Acrobats (Cedille) was released to exceptionally strong reviews. His compositions are mostly published by Merion Music/Theodore Presser Co., as well as AMP/G. Schirmer, Doberman-Yppan and Columbia Music.

David Leisner has been a member of the guitar faculty at the Manhattan School of Music since 1993, and also taught at the New England Conservatory from 1980-2003. Primarily self-taught as both guitarist and composer, he briefly studied guitar with John Duarte, David Starobin and Angelo Gilardino and composition with Richard Winslow, Virgil Thomson, Charles Turner and David Del Tredici. His book, Playing with Ease: a healthy approach to guitar technique, published by Oxford University Press, has received extraordinary acclaim.