LEWISTON — The Room at Trinity will kick off its second-Saturday Music and Poetry concert series at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, with readings from former Poet Laureate of Maine

followed by music by jazz guitarist Gary Wittner.

Wittner has been performing jazz in Maine and four continents for 27 years. Twice selected as a Kennedy Center Jazz Ambassador, he has also received Fulbright Specialist and Maine Arts Commission grants. He has released six CDs and published one book, “Thelonious Monk for Guitar.”

Wittner’s performance career has been quite varied. In the late 1970s he started playing jazz standards, and in the 1990s began composing and performing original compositions. Around 2003 he got interested in Latin music and developed groups with Cuban vocalist Raul Freyre (Dos Canosos), and Chilean percussionist Andres Espinoza (Grupo Mofongo). He also started yearly trips to Ecuador, where he plays with musicians from that area.

Most recently, Wittner has been studying voice, and writing original songs with lyrics. Many of these songs are humorous, in the style of Mose Allision and Dave Frishberg. He has been experimenting with various ways of integrating voice into his music. In addition to singing lyrics, he is harmonizing voice/guitar and singing bass lines while soloing.

Last summer he released a new CD with eight of his vocal originals. Since then his new vocal music has been heard in local concerts and on Maine Public Radio and Portland’s WMPG.

Sholl has published eight collections of poetry, most recently “Otherwise Seeable” (2014). Among her awards are a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, and two Maine Writer’s Fellowships. Sholl was chosen to be the Poet Laureate of Maine in 2006, a five-year position named by the governor. The Poet Laureate is an honor bestowed upon a person whose work is nationally recognized and of exceptional quality.

Her work has been read on American Public Radio’s Writers’ Almanac and is included in several anthologies, including “Letters to America,” “Contemporary American Poetry on Race,” and a range of magazines, including “Field,” “Triquarterly,” and more. She has been a visiting poet at the University of Pittsburgh and Bucknell University. She lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the MFA Program of Vermont College.

A suggested donation of $10 will be collected at the door. Proceeds go to the artists and to the several neighborhood ministries of Trinity Church. School children accompanied by a parent and students will be admitted free of charge.

Trinity Church is at 247 Bates Street. For more information, call 207-344-3106.