Contact: Maridith Geuder
Photo by: Joy Clark
STARKVILLE, Miss.--An award-winning classical guitarist and Mississippi State faculty member is receiving a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar Award.
Michael Patilla, an assistant professor of music at the university, will teach guitar over a four-month period at the National Autonomous University in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the capital city of the Central American republic. While there, he also will review submissions by native composers for a published edition of the music and a later compact disc recording.
"I was in Tegucigalpa last year to participate in a music festival organized by students and received a lot of media attention from television and newspapers," Patilla said. "This is a wonderful opportunity to have an impact on musical education and to gain some international recognition for the composers of the region."
Founded in 1847, the NAU is the major institution of higher learning in the country and one of two in the capital city.
Patilla earned a doctorate from the prestigious Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, where he studied with such guitarists as Manuel Barrauco, Julian Gray, Bruce Holzman, Paul O'Dette, and others. He has won top prizes in the Volos International Guitar Competition and the Italian International Guitar Competition, among others.
At MSU, he has established the music department's growing guitar program and directs the campus Guitar Ensemble. A frequent guest performer, he has made appearances with the Volos Winter Guitar Festival in Greece, the Atelier Concert Series in Paris, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, among many.
"Septiembre," Patilla's debut compact disc featuring the works of South American composers, was released in 2005.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.