Director Richard Savino has an extensive discography of over 35 commercial recordings of music ranging from the early 17th century through virtuoso music of Niccolò Paganini and Johann Kaspar Mertz. Contained within these are the only recordings of Mauro Giuliani’s Op. 30 Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra and Boccherini’s Symphonia a grandé orchestra con chitarra with the original orchestrations, and no cuts on a period instrument. He is also the recipient of a Diapason d’Or from Compact and a 10 du Rèpertoire. The latter has also placed his Boccherini recordings in their “Great Discoveries” category, which they deem as essential to any classical music collection. In addition to his 2012 GRAMMY nomination he was also a principal instrumentalist on the Ars Lyrica 2011 GRAMMY nominated cd of Hasse’s Anthony and Cleopatra. Additional recordings include Venice Before Vivaldi, a Portrait of Giovanni Legrenzi, Villancicos y Cantadas (sacred music from Spain and Latin America), Sebastian Duron’s zarzuela Salir el Amor del Mundo (1696), romantic solo guitar music of Johann Kaspar Mertz, virtuoso sonatas by Paganini and Giuliani with violinist Monica Huggett, an extensive collection of 18th century guitar music from Mexico by Santiago de Murcia (4 Stars: Goldberg), The Essential Giuliani Vols. 1 & 2 (4 cds Koch), Op. 21 Solo Sonatas by Ferdinando Carulli, Baroque Guitar Sonatas (1696) of Ludovico Roncalli (Dorian), the first period instrument versions of the Boccherini Guitar Symphonia and the Op. 30 Concerto for Guitar by Mauro Giuliani and three additional recordings of music by Barabara Strozzi (Emanuella Galli, mezzo soprano), Biagio Marini (with Monica Huggett) and Giovanni Buonamente (with Monica Huggett and Bruce Dickey) and Ensemble Galatea. He has been a featured guest on numerous national and international television and radio programs such as NPR, PBS and CBC and CBS, and has been chosen three times as the Global Hit on the Public Radio International/BBC program The World most recently in 2016 to celebrate the release of his cd What Artemisia Heard, Music from the Time of Caravaggio and Gentileschi. This cd surveys the life of the great 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi through music. Mr. Savino has toured and recorded with some of the world’s most important performers including Joyce Di Donato, Monica Huggett, Stephanie Chase, Chanticleer, and Paul Hillier. And as a continuo player has performed as principal with groups such as the Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, West Edge Opera, Santa Fe Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, Dallas Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. He has also guest directed the Aston Magna Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Ensemble Rebel and Milano Classical Chamber Orchestra. From 1986-98 Mr. Savino directed the CSU Summer Arts Guitar and Lute Institute. Presently he is director of the ensemble El Mundo.

He has also created concert programs and cds on the lives of Francisco Goya and Peter Paul Rubens. In 2017-18 he created 25 soundtracks to accompany videos describing the world’s largest collection of privately held Rembrandts, the only private Vermeer and dozens of additional paintings by other great Dutch masters for the Leiden Collection in New York. These videos have recently been shown at the Louvre in Paris and the national museums in Beijing, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi. These can be heard/seen at: https://www.theleidencollection.com/videos.

An avid writer and music researcher, Mr. Savino has composed all of his cd notes and had articles and editions published by Cambridge University Press, Editions Chantarelle, Indiana University Press, Guitar Foundation of America, and Gendai Guitar. In 2017 he discovered an important collection of early 18th century Spanish secular cantadas that he is editing and will record during the next year. He is a founding member of the Consortium for Early Guitar Studies at Cambridge University, Professor of Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a full Professor at Sacramento State University where he has been the only music professor to receive “outstanding and exceptional” and “best” sabbatical awards. Mr. Savino instructors have included Andres Segovia, Oscar Ghiglia, Eliot Fisk, Albert Fuller and Jerry Willard. He received his Doctorate from SUNY at Stony Brook.