The General Stanton Inn has been welcoming guests since before the American Revolution, which makes it one of the oldest colonial inns in America. Its guest register is said to have included George Washington, Chester Arthur and Theodore Roosevelt, and George H.W. Bush passed through while training as a naval pilot at the nearby Charlestown airport during World War II. On Sunday, Oct. 18, from noon to 4 p.m., the old inn's grounds will host a different kind of gathering: the opening afternoon of the 11th annual URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival, with Duke Robillard, the Atlantic Mandolin Quartet and a handful of University of Rhode Island guitar students sharing an outdoor stage.
That the festival begins at a tavern older than the country is fitting, because the event itself has deep local roots. Adam Levin, a classical guitarist who teaches at URI and directs its classical guitar program, founded the festival in 2015 as a one-day symposium organized with what he calls his "closest guitar friends." Levin's ambition, as he described it to URI, was "to give back by creating a sanctuary where anyone—regardless of age or level—could come together to grow as guitarists and feed their musical muse." He credits his own mentor, the celebrated guitarist Eliot Fisk, with the push. "My mentor Eliot Fisk always told me, 'It is your responsibility to create opportunities where they didn't exist before. The phone isn't going to pick itself up—you have to take the bull by the horns and make things happen,'" Levin recalled. "That really resonated with me and served as the fuel to make this festival a reality."
A decade on, that one-day gathering has become a weeklong affair spanning Kingston and Westerly, and it has widened well beyond the six-string. In 2023 the festival piloted a Course in Mandolin Excellence under the Israeli mandolin virtuoso Jacob Reuven. The experiment took, and the festival rebranded itself as the URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival, folding in mandolin, oud, harp, sitar and other plucked relatives. Reuven returns in 2026 as both a performer and the namesake of the Jacob Reuven International Mandolin Competition.
The 2026 edition runs Oct. 18-25 and brings roughly thirty artists to ten performances across the URI Fine Arts Center, Edwards Hall, URI Hillel, St. Augustine's Church, the United Theater in Westerly and the General Stanton Inn. The lineup is deliberately hard to pigeonhole. Eliot Fisk, Levin's former teacher at New England Conservatory, headlines the gala finale. Jorge Caballero and Eleonora Strino share a program called "The Guitar Transformed." Brazilian guitarist João Luiz and the Ian Coury Trio anchor a "Noite Brasileira" at the United Theater in Westerly. Antoine Boyer, Vincent Beer-Demander, Fabio Gallucci, Duo Sonidos and Adrian Montero Moya, a past competition winner, all appear, alongside Levin himself.
Duke Robillard, who opens the festival, is a Rhode Island institution in the most literal sense. Born Michael John Robillard in Woonsocket in 1948, he founded Roomful of Blues in 1967 and spent more than a decade with the band before going on to a solo career and a stint in the Fabulous Thunderbirds. His playing has always roamed across blues, jazz, swing and jump blues, which makes him a natural fit for a festival that treats the guitar as a passport rather than a genre.
The Atlantic Mandolin Quartet, which shares the opening bill, is devoted to classical mandolin chamber music, with a repertoire that reaches from the classical and romantic eras into contemporary works. They will be joined by URI students Lucca Maher, Thomas Marchioi, Andrew Oswinkle and Heybrajan Tamariz—a reminder that the festival's stages are not reserved for visiting virtuosos. URI music students, alumni and faculty appear throughout the week.
Education is woven through the schedule rather than tacked on. Guest artists give masterclasses, the festival runs workshops and private lessons, and an expo brings instrument makers to campus to show their work. The M.E. Brune Guitar Competition holds its Young Artists Division semifinals on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 9:30 a.m. and its finals on Sunday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m., both in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall with free admission. The festival notes that this year marks the first time the Young Artists competition is held in person, with twelve semifinalists coming to campus. The Rising Stars program serves players ages 6 to 17, and competition winners earn performance invitations, string sponsorships and masterclass opportunities.
Several events are free and open to the public, including the Ensembles Showcase on Sunday, Oct. 25, at 11:30 a.m., which culminates in a Mega Guitar and Mandolin Orchestra, and a mandolin outreach concert at URI Hillel on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 5 p.m. Ticketing is tiered and unusually accessible: the kickoff at the General Stanton Inn is $5 for students, $15 for seniors and Rhode Island Guitar Guild members, and $20 general admission. Later concerts run somewhat higher, and full auditor passes, day passes and active-participant packages are available for those who want the whole week.
The festival is presented in collaboration with the Rhode Island Guitar Guild, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and its organizers describe it as the only event of its kind in the state. That claim is easy to believe. Where else in Rhode Island can you hear a Woonsocket bluesman, a Brazilian choro trio, an Israeli mandolin virtuoso and a classical guitar star on the same week's bill—starting on the lawn of an inn that predates the Revolution?