James Limerick Kerr plays a solo fingerstyle guitar and Dobro guitar show at Best Video Film & Cultural Center on Fri., July 17. The show starts at 7 PM and the cover is $10.

James Limerick Kerr is a fingerstyle and classical guitarist, Dobro guitarist, and educator who brings a fountain of influences to his performance career. With playing “head and shoulders above most players” (The New Haven Register), his solo work incorporates Renaissance fantasias, classical guitar, bluegrass, ragtime, Delta blues, along with original compositions for fingerstyle and resonator steel guitar (Dobro). Kerr’s latest recording, Lute Fantasias of Molinaro (Acis) is available in spring 2026 on streaming platforms and CD.

Kerr completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in classical guitar performance in 2016 at Stony Brook University (SUNY). He studied jazz as an undergrad at the University of Michigan, and received a master's in music education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Kerr is currently Lecturer of Music, Guitar at Smith College, and is based in Northampton, MA and New Haven, CT. Prior to joining the faculty at Smith, Kerr was Associate in Music Performance faculty at Columbia University, where he taught applied classical and bluegrass guitar for a decade and directed the Bluegrass Ensemble. Other college level guitar teaching positions have included CT-State Naugatuck Valley, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).

Kerr is the author of A Twenty-First Century Guidebook for Guitarists: Practice, Performance, and Teaching (Kendall Hunt), a textbook for college guitar students. An updated second edition was completed in 2025.