The Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts announces the final concert in the 2022-2023 SCORE Classical Music Appreciation Concert Series, which features Guitarist Paolo Schianchi. The concert will take place on Tuesday, April 25, at 7 p.m., in the Turner Center art galleries, 527 N. Patterson Street, in Valdosta.  

PAOLO SCHIANCHI is considered by many one of the best Italian musicians of his generation and is a musician capable of mastering all the varieties of the guitar, from the Renaissance lute to visionary instruments that he personally invented and patented (including a 49-string guitar and the Octopus®). With four master’s degrees in music and communication, he is the first Artist in Residence in the history of Pennsylvania’s Saint Francis University (founded 1847), the first artist to perform a solo guitar concert at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the first person to have retrieved, restored, and transcribed—after more than four centuries of oblivion—unpublished manuscripts by the Renaissance composer Santino Garsi da Parma. Schianchi has received national and international awards both as a performer and composer.

Schianchi has performed countless times on national radio and TV (RSI, Rai, Mediaset, WTAJ, TEDx) and has collaborated with artists such as Bernardo Lanzetti (PFM), Steve Hackett (Genesis), Giulio Carmassi (Pat Metheny Unity Band), Malika Ayanne (MTV Awards), Jim Donovan (Rusted Root, Santana, Led Zeppelin), Dietrich Paredes (El Sistema), Anthony Wellington (Victor Wooten Band), John Turturro, Michael Di Jiacomo, and many others. He was awarded an EB-1 visa for life from the United States (the so-called “Einstein visa”) for “extraordinary abilities” in the artistic field, which is usually reserved for Nobel Laureates. Since 2017, Paolo has directed the Innovatory of Music, an innovative international program designed to support young talents that has partnered with prestigious institutions such as the WBG and the Berklee College of Music. Through the Innovatory of Music Foundation, he also directs the activities of the Music Department of Casa Italiana Ente Promotore, a non-profit engaged in the discussion of Italian culture in Washington D.C.  

SCORE is made possible through a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a matching sponsorship from Dan and Carolyn Coleman. The season also features student performances on the mornings of the event, which complement traditional classroom music and art education provided by the local school systems. Evening concerts take place at 7 p.m. and are offered for $30 per ticket.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit turnercenter.org or call 229.247.2787.