Jason Vieaux (born July 17, 1973, in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

) is an American classical guitarist. He began his musical training in Buffalo, New York at the age of eight, after which he continued his studies at the

Cleveland Institute of Music The Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) is a private music conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. The school was founded in 1920 by a group of supporters led by Martha Bell Sanders and Mary Hutchens Smith, with Ernest Bloch serving as its first dire ...

. In 1992, Vieaux was awarded the

Guitar Foundation of America The Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) is an American classical guitar nonprofit organization that was founded in 1973 at the National Guitar Convention sponsored by the American String Teachers Association. The foundation offers various ser ...

International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner.

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

describes him as, "perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation," and ''

Gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

'' magazine puts him "among the elite of today's classical guitarists." His album ''Play'' won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Career highlights

Jason Vieaux has performed as a concerto soloist with over 100 orchestras, including

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

, Charlotte, Buffalo,

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is an American chamber orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its principal concert venue is the Perelman Theater of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, of which the orchestra is a founding r ...

, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Chautauqua Festival. Some of the conductors he has worked with include David Lockington, David Robertson, Edwin Outwater,

Jahja Ling Jahja Ling () is a conductor, music director and pianist. From 2004 to 2017, he was the music director and conductor at the San Diego Symphony. Following his retirement in 2017, he plans to do guest conducting, as well as teaching and volunt ...

, Michael Stern,

Miguel Harth-Bedoya Miguel Alberto Harth-Bedoya Gonzalez (born 1968) is a Peruvian conductor. He was formerly music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra from 2000 to 2020 and chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra from 2013 to 2020. Starting the Fa ...

Stefan Sanderling Stefan Sanderling (born 2 August 1964 in East Berlin, East Germany) is an orchestral conductor. He is the son of the conductor Kurt Sanderling and the double-bass player Barbara Sanderling. His half-brother is the conductor Thomas Sanderling. H ...

Gerard Schwarz Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orc ...

, Giancarlo Guerrero, and Steven Smith. Vieaux's appearances for

Caramoor Summer Music Festival The Caramoor Summer Music Festival is a music festival founded in 1945 that is held on the estate of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, which includes a Mediterranean-style stucco villa and is located about north of New York City in Ka ...

, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society,

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is an American organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music in New York City and around the world. It is the largest organization of its kind in the country for chamber m ...

, New York's

92nd Street Y 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the You ...

, Music@Menlo, Strings Music Festival, Grand Teton, Argentina's Teatro Colón, and many others have forged his reputation as a first-rate performer and curator of programs. As a chamber musician Jason Vieaux regularly performs and collaborates with Escher String Quartet, violinist

Anne Akiko Meyers Anne Akiko Meyers (born May 15, 1970, in San Diego) is an American violinist. She has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad. Her album ''Fandango'', was awarded two Latin GRAMMY Latin Grammy's for Best Classical Alb ...

, Grammy-winning

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...

Sasha Cooke Sasha Cooke (born ) is an American mezzo-soprano. Cooke was born in Riverside, California, and grew up in College Station, Texas, where her parents are professors of Russian at Texas A&M University. She earned a bachelor's degree from Rice Univers ...

, harpist

Yolanda Kondonassis Yolanda Kondonassis (born 1963 in Norman, Oklahoma, United States) is an American classical harpist. She is considered one of the world's premier solo harpists and is widely regarded as today's most recorded classical harpist. Kondonassis attend ...

, and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

bandoneon The bandoneon () or bandonion is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It is a typical instrument in most tango ensembles. As with other members of the concertina family, it is held between the hands, and played ...

virtuoso Julien Labro. Vieaux's passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Avner Dorman,

Jeff Beal Jeff Beal (born June 20, 1963) is an American composer of music for film, television, recordings, and the concert hall. Highly regarded as a jazz instrumentalist and versatile composer, Beal creates music that often incorporates a synthesis of impr ...

, Dan Visconti, Vivian Fung,

David Ludwig David Ludwig may refer to: * David Ludwig (physician) David S. Ludwig (born December 24, 1957) is an American Endocrinology, endocrinologist and low-carbohydrate diet advocate in Boston, Massachusetts.Putka, Sophie (2021)"Obesity Paper Has Diet R ...

, Jonathan Leshnoff, Jerod Tate, Gary Schocker, and Eric Sessler. In 2021, notable Jazz guitarist

Pat Metheny Patrick Bruce Metheny ( ; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He was the leader of the Pat Metheny Group (1977–2010) and continues to work in various small-combo, duet, and solo settings, as well as other side pr ...

dedicated ''Four Paths Of Light '', a four-movement guitar solo work, to Jason Vieaux which Vieaux has recorded for the Pat Metheny album '' Road to the Sun''.

Teaching

Jason Vieaux co-founded the guitar department at the

Curtis Institute of Music The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, a Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on a full scholarshi ...

in 2011 and has taught at the

since 1997, heading the guitar department since 2001. In 2012, the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar was launched with ArtistWorks, a technological interface that provides one-on-one online study with Vieaux for guitar students around the world.

Composing

Vieaux has arranged and composed pieces for the guitar throughout his career. Since 2020, he has self-published scores for his original compositions.

Instrument

Jason Vieaux currently performs on a Gernot Wagner guitar made in 2013. Wagner is based in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Germany. The guitar is made in the "double-top" or "laminate-top" style of classical guitar construction.

Notable achievements, awards, and honors

* 1992: At 19, he became the youngest First Prize winner of the

International Guitar Competition, a record which still stands as of the 2020. * 1995: Jason was named an Arts Ambassador of the U.S. to Southeast Asia. * 1996: His debut album, released by

Naxos Records Naxos comprises numerous companies, divisions, imprints, and labels specializing in classical music but also audiobooks and other genres. The premier label is Naxos Records, which focuses on classical music. Naxos Musical Group encompasses about ...

in 1996, won the rosette in its rating in the ''Penguin Guide to Compact Discs''. * 1998: Jason received the Cleveland Institute of Music ''Alumni Achievement Award''. * 2002: Vieaux became a ''Young Artist-In-Residence'' for NPR's

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million listeners on 237 stations. ...

. * 2009: He became the first classical musician to perform on NPR's

Tiny Desk Concert ''Tiny Desk Concerts'' is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of former '' All Songs Considered'' host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first ''Tiny Desk Concert'' came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music ed ...

series. * 2010: Jason received the ''Salon Di Virtuosi Career Grant Award''. * 2011: He co-founded the

Guitar Department with David Starobin. * 2014: NPR named "Zapateado" from his solo album ''Play'' as one of its "50 Favorite Songs of 2014 (So Far)." * 2015: Vieaux's solo album ''Play'' won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. * 2016: Jason received the Cleveland Institute of Music ''Distinguished Alumni Award''.

Discography

Solo: * ''Jason Vieaux, Guitar'', a selection of works composed by Morel, Brouwer, Regondi, Bach, Ponce (1993) * ''Laureate Series Guitar Recital'' (

Naxos Naxos (; , ) is a Greek island belonging to the Cyclades island group. It is the largest island in the group. It was an important centre during the Bronze Age Cycladic Culture and in the Ancient Greek Archaic Period. The island is famous as ...

, 1996) * ''Sor – Guitar Music'', a selection of works composed by

Fernando Sor Fernando Sor (baptised 14 February 1778 – 10 July 1839) was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer of the Classical period (music), late Classical era and Romantic music, early Romantic era. Best known for writing solo classical guitar mu ...

(Naxos, 1998) * ''Ponce: Guitar Sonatas'' (Azica, 2002) * ''Sevilla'', a selection of works composed by

Isaac Albéniz Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (; 29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the post-romantic era who also had a significant influence on his con ...

(Azica, 2004) * ''Images of Metheny'', a selection of works composed by

(Azica, 2005) * ''Bach Vol. 1, Works for Lute'', a selection of works composed by

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...

(Azica, 2009) * ''Play'', a selection of Spanish, Mexican, South American, Cuban, French, and American solo classical guitar classics (Azica, 2014) Chamber: * ''Dream Travels'', with flutist Gary Schocker (Azica, 2002) * ''Arioso'', with flutist Gary Schocker (Azica, 2004) * ''Song of Brazil'', with cellist Young-Hoon Song (Stomp/

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

, 2007) * ''The Music of

Astor Piazzolla Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (, ; March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed '' nuevo tango'', incorporating elements fr ...

'', with bandoneonist Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra (Azica, 2011) * ''Alchemy'', performed Jan Krzywicki's ''In Evening's Shadow'' with Susan Narucki, Hirono Oka, Rachel Ku, and Yumi Kendall (Albany, 2011) * ''Together'', with harpist

(Azica, 2015) * ''Infusion'', with accordionist and bandoneonist Julien Labro (Azica, 2016) * ''Dance'', with Escher Quartet (Azica, 2019) Guest: * Martha Aarons – ''History of the Tango'': Performed ''L'Histoire du Tango'' by Ástor Piazzolla with Martha Aarons (Azica, 2003) * Sammy DeLeon Y Su Orquesta - ''Con Salsa Y Sabor!'': Performed ''Aúscencia'' (Azica, 2004) * Various Artists - ''Ginastera: One Hundred'': Performed

Alberto Ginastera Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (; April 11, 1916June 25, 1983) was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical music, 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Biography G ...

's solo ''Guitar Sonata'' (Oberlin Music, 2016) * Various Artists - ''House of Cards Symphony'': Performed ''Six Sixteen'' with

Norrköping Symphony Orchestra The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra () is a Swedish professional symphony orchestra. It is based at the concert hall Louis de Geer konsert & kongress, De Geerhallen, in the center of Norrköping. History The orchestra was founded in 1912, an ...

, conducted by

(BIS Records, 2018) * * Jonathan Leshnoff - ''Symphony No. 4, Guitar Concerto, Starburst'': Performed Leshnoff's ''Guitar Concerto'' with the

Nashville Symphony The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. History In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur a ...

and Giancarlo Guerrero (Naxos, 2019) * * Stephen Powell - ''American Composers at Play'': Performed ''The Brief Light'' by John Musto with Stephen Powell (Acis, 2020) * *

- ''Road to the Sun'': Performed ''Four Paths of Light'', a four-movement guitar solo work dedicated to Vieaux by Metheny (Modern Recordings, 2021) ''Albums with a * are Grammy-nominated.''

References

External links

Jason Vieaux websiteOnline Classical Guitar School with Jason VieauxNPR's Tiny Desk Concert

Hear Jason Vieaux in concert
fro
WGBH Radio BostonNPR artist page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vieaux, Jason Living people American classical guitarists American male guitarists Musicians from Buffalo, New York Cleveland Institute of Music alumni 1973 births Guitarists from New York (state) Classical musicians from New York (state) 21st-century American guitarists 21st-century American male musicians