The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Concert Series resumes at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, with a performance by the highly accomplished pianist Awadagin Pratt in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Bringing to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ a program by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninov, Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and for intensely involving performances that receive tremendous response from audiences and the press throughout the United States.

Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and non-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students with ID. For additional information about the series and Olin Concert Hall, please click . For reservations, please call 207-786-6135.

The series closes March 11 with the Quartetto di Venezia, an Italian string quartet celebrating its 20th anniversary season.

Raised in the Illinois town of Normal, the prodigiously talented is anything but. His adventurous interpretations of traditional repertoire, his technical and expressive command and the sheer breadth of his talent have captured worldwide attention.

The son of college professors, one from Sierra Leone and the other from Texas, Pratt (whose first name is pronounced ow-ah-DAH-jin) was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Normal, where his parents moved to accept positions at Illinois State University.

He entered the University of Illinois at age 16 and subsequently enrolled in the Peabody Conservatory of Music, becoming that school’s first student to receive diplomas in three performance areas — piano, violin and conducting. (Today he is increasingly active as a conductor.)

Winner of the 1992 Naumburg International Piano Competition, Pratt has performed solo recitals and orchestral dates in Europe, Asia and across the United States. He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic and the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and National symphonies, and performs duo recitals with cellist Zuill Bailey.

Pratt was named one of the 50 Leaders of Tomorrow in Ebony Magazine’s 50th anniversary issue and performed twice at the White House at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. An Angel/EMI recording artist, he released his debut album, “A Long Way From Normal,” in 1994 and his most recent, an all-Bach disc with the St. Lawrence String Quartet, in 2002.

Pratt is an assistant professor of piano and an artist in residence at the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.

One of the best and best-known American chamber ensembles, the Guarneri String Quartet is coming to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College for a rare Maine appearance, performing in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 6. Admission is $15, except $10 for seniors and students and free for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students.

The quartet was founded in 1964 by violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violist Michael Tree and cellist David Soyer. This lineup stayed together until Soyer retired in 2000, a length of commitment unmatched among American string quartets. Peter Wiley, former cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio and once a student of the founding cellist, succeeded Soyer.

The Guarneri String Quartet has mastered the difficult art of transcending the sum of individual parts without sacrificing individuality. The group’s decades together have given its members an exquisite attentiveness to and support for one another. The result is cherished for its balance, tonal palette and respect for the composer’s intention.

Or, as a writer for the Miami Herald put it, “Some things, like the Guarneri, are as good as it gets.”

Based at the University of Maryland, the Guarneri quartet enjoys a touring reputation that’s both international and intensely local, with annual recital series at the university and at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (In the 2000-2001 season, it was the only quartet to perform at all of New York City’s major venues.)

The quartet has recorded for the Philips, RCA Red Seal, Arabesque and Surroundedby Entertainment labels. It has been the sole subject of three books, including Steinhardt’s Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Search of Harmony (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), and a full-length documentary film, Alan Miller’s 1989 High Fidelity — The Guarneri String Quartet.

While the quartet may be best-known for its revelatory readings of the standard literature, it also spotlights gems by lesser-known composers and brand-new work. In Lewiston, its program includes an early Beethoven quartet, the high Classical Op. 18, No. 5; Dvorak’s mature, lyrical String Quartet in C major, Op. 61; and Witold Lutoslawski’s String Quartet, written in 1964 and incorporating chance or improvisational passages.

For more information about this ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Concert Series event, please call 207-786-6135.