Anthony LaLena is a guitarist and scholar currently residing in Rochester, New York. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the State University of New York College at Geneseo, where he teaches musicology courses on western classical music, jazz, and American popular music from the 1960s to present. Anthony also co-directs the continuo ensemble at Geneseo, a group which in addition to performing early music also explores contemporary improvisation-based compositions.

Anthony has performed in the United States and Europe as both a soloist and chamber musician. After a performance by the Fredonia Guitar Quartet at Le Musée de Jouet in Colmar, France, Anthony and his colleagues were hailed as a “remarkable group of young musicians” by the city’s newspaper, L’Alsace. During Anthony’s tenure with the Fredonia Guitar Quartet the ensemble was the inspiration and dedicatee of a work by the late French guitarist and composer, Roland Dyens. Current chamber music projects include the LaLena-Marcondes guitar duo, which specializes in the vast repertoire of early-twentieth century guitar duet arrangements, and a duo with soprano, Robin Steitz. He also plays with New York Guitar Quartet, which made their debut during the 2019-20 season of the Skaneateles Guitar Concert Series and is currently completing a world premiere recording of composition by John Anthony Lennon. Anthony is also dedicated to historically informed performance practice, and has performed concerts on Baroque guitar, nineteenth-century guitar, and early-twentieth gut-strung instruments.

As an avid researcher, Anthony has traveled to Spain where he studied plucked-string repertoire of the sixteenth century and nineteenth century guitar history at the Conservatorio de Musica de Manuel Castillo in Seville. Anthony has also studied Baroque performance practice and arrangement with the celebrated harpsichordist, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, at the Manhattan School of Music, and baroque guitar with Paul O’Dette. In addition to studies in early music, Anthony has a particular interest in the music of the early twentieth century and contemporary work, and has been involved in commissioning new music and performing in concerts for the American Composers Alliance in New York City. Currently, he is completing a recording project of new solo guitar music by Gulli Björnsson and Mark Delpriora.

His musicological research is focused on music and politics, and specifically the musical construction of identity and race in twentieth-century Spain. His most recent work concerning the guitar focuses on distance and longing in the music of composers of the Spanish diaspora following the Spanish Civil War. His dissertation work is centered on the music of Manuel de Falla and the intersection of imperial identity, gender, race, and modernist aesthetics in Spain. More broadly, his research interests include the aesthetics of fragmentation, failure, humor, and puppetry in modernist theatrical music. He also maintains a scholarly interest in popular music of the later 20th century, consumerism, subculture, and noise. He routinely presents papers and lecture-recitals at international conferences throughout the North America and Europe.

Anthony holds a PhD in historical musicology from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. As a scholar, his work has been supported by the Jerald C. Graue Fellowship, the Glenn Watkins Traveling Fellowship, the Helmers Traveling Fellowship, and the Elsa T. Johnson Fellowship Dissertation Fellowship.

He also holds Doctor of Musical Arts degree in classical guitar performance with a minor in Early Music Performance Practice from the same institution, where he studied under Dr. Nicholas Goluses and Paul O’Dette. While at Eastman, he was awarded the prestigious Performer’s Certificate and won first prize in the concerto competition, performing Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Guitar Concerto. As a guitarist he has performed in masterclasses for such distinguished artists as Manuel Barrueco, David Russell, and Eduardo Fernandez. He also holds a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied under the composer and guitarist, Mark Delpriora. Anthony is also a proud SUNY alumnus, earning his Bachelor of Music from SUNY Fredonia.

Videos and recordings can be found on YouTube, as well as under the video tab on this website.