Performance Today describes classical guitarist Jordan Dodson as “one of the top young guitarists of his generation.” A winner of Astral’s 2013 National Auditions, he is an active soloist and chamber musician based in New York City. He has received awards from the 2011 Lillian Fuchs Chamber Music Competition, the 2010 Indiana International Guitar Competition, and the 2008 American String Teachers Association Competition. In 2013, he was a Young Artist in Residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today. He recently appeared as soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Alabama Symphony, the Seongnam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra and gave the regional premiere of A Concerto of Colours by Stephen Goss and the world premiere of GLOW for electric guitar and orchestra by Andrea Clearfield. 

Mr. Dodson’s recent performance and teaching schedule has taken him across the U.S. and abroad to such venues as New York’s (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette (Brooklyn), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, National Sawdust (Williamsburg), the Seongnam Arts Center (South Korea), the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, and the Museo Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, and to such music festivals as the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Festival Daniou in France. 

A passionate advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Dodson has commissioned and premiered dozens of pieces internationally, including works by Elliot Cole, Jason Eckardt, Stephen Goss, Lewis Nielson, Robert Sirota, and Gabriella Smith. He performs in several New York City chamber ensembles including the Metropolis Ensemble and The Weeklies and recently collaborated with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Curtis on Tour, NOW Ensemble, the American Modern Opera Company, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Anne-Marie McDermott, and Contemporaneous.

In the fall of 2011, Mr. Dodson was one of two students selected to inaugurate the Curtis Institute of Music’s classical guitar studio, bringing to the school not only a new instrument, but also new repertoire and new possibilities for music-making. Curtis Dean John Mangan said Dodson fulfilled the school’s need for “ambassadors for the instrument and its repertoire who could create interest among their peers, along with a desire to collaborate.” Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Jordan Dodson holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and his teachers have included Clare Callahan, David Starobin, and Jason Vieaux. He plays a Gary Lee guitar.