Robert Phelps, guitarist has been an Artist Associate of Guitar at Williams College since 1990. He is a performing member of the Williams Chamber Players and Jazz Faculty.
In 1992, Phelps was the featured soloist at the Guitar Alumni Series of the Yale University School of Music, from which he holds a Master of Music degree in guitar performance. He is also a Mel Bay author. Among his publications, Mel Bay's Guitar Workbook was endorsed by guitarists Oscar Ghiglia and Robert Guthrie. The book was used as a class text in classical guitar fingerboard harmony at the Eastman School of Music, and was the subject of a feature review in Soundboard. (summer, 1996 by John Holmquist). The book was a suggested text at the Berklee College of Music by Larry Baione, Chair of the Jazz Guitar Department.
In addition to premiering works at the College Music Society meetings, Phelps has performed several Canadian-American exchange concerts and master classes at the University of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. In 1996, he joined Trio Sonata, a flute, oboe, and guitar trio, which has concertized throughout the United States and Canada. He has 2 cd's: Six On Two(GG-1025) for solo guitar, and another with his Trio, Music For Flute, Oboe, and Guitar(GG-1014). Both are on the Gasparo Label. These cd's are available through his website.
Mr. Phelps has also played in major theater productions at the Hartford Stage Company and at the Barter Theater, the state theater of Virginia.
Working with harpsichordist Fernando Valenti he produced six guitar transcriptions from the sonatas for harpsichord by Domenico Scarlatti. These are published by the Columbia Music Company and were given an unsolicited review in Classical Guitar Magazine.(June, 1995 by Raymond Burley)
His students have been accepted into major graduate and undergraduate performance programs across the country.
Suite For Florence
My brother-in-law, Gino Bruno is a network cameraman who loves Italy and visits there with his wife regularly. He asked me if I could compose a short work for guitar around my experiences in Florence. My wife and I had just vacationed there, and this video is the result of our mutual affection for Florence, Italy.
After it was written, I went down to Silver Spring MD where they live and recorded the piece I wrote for Gino in 2017.
Robert Phelps
2020