The Guitarists Are Coming - URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival Returns

Mark your calendars, Rhode Island. From October 18 to October 25, the University of Rhode Island becomes a stage for one of the most anticipated gatherings on the East Coast music calendar: the URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival. For a full week, guitarists and mandolinists from around the world will converge on campus for performances, lectures, masterclasses, and friendly competition, drawing music lovers from across New England and beyond.

A Festival With Deep Roots at Edge Realty

This one is personal for us. Our broker and founder, Vin Fraioli, spent years as a concert guitarist and teacher at URI before he ever set foot in real estate. That chapter of his life never really closed. It shaped how he listens, how he teaches his own team, and how he thinks about building something worth returning to, whether that is a piece of music or a home. So when the opportunity came to support the festival and its director, Adam Levin, Edge Realty did not hesitate. We are proud sponsors of this year's event and firm believers in what it brings to our community.

Who Is Taking the Stage

This year's lineup is stacked with talent spanning genres and continents. Audiences can look forward to performances from:

1. Duke Robillard, our own local blues and roots guitar legend, whose career has taken him from founding Roomful of Blues to collaborating with Bob Dylan
2. Elliot Fisk, a towering figure in classical guitar and one of the instrument's most respected living performers
3. Antoine Boyer, the French gypsy jazz guitarist whose playing has earned comparisons to the genre's greats
4. Eleonora Strino, Italy's celebrated jazz guitar icon, bringing a European sensibility to the week's programming
5. Adam Levin, the festival's director and a world-class classical guitarist in his own right

Together, this lineup turns a single week at URI into a crossroads for classical, jazz, blues, and gypsy guitar traditions, all in one place.

What To Expect All Week Long

Beyond the headline concerts, the festival is built for anyone curious about the instrument, not just seasoned musicians. Expect a full schedule of lectures that dig into technique and history, competitions that showcase rising talent from guitar and mandolin programs around the world, and informal moments where attendees can rub shoulders with artists most only hear on recordings. Whether you play guitar yourself, grew up with a mandolin in the house, or simply love live music done well, there is a reason to show up more than once this week.

Why Events Like This Matter to Us

Newport and the surrounding communities draw people in for the harbor views and the history, but it is weeks like this one that remind us what gives the area its character. A university campus filling with musicians from France, Italy, and across the United States is the kind of thing that happens when a community invests in the arts and keeps showing up for it, year after year. Supporting the URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival is one small way Edge Realty gets to be part of that story.

Plan Your Week

The festival runs October 18 through October 25 at the University of Rhode Island. For more details go to urigmfest.org