Jason Vieaux is expanding the definition of “Classical Guitarist” and changing the face of guitar programming, building a solid audience and fan base along the way. His ever-growing reputation for putting his expressive gifts and virtuosity at the service of the music earns him an active schedule of solo, chamber and concerto appearances around the US and abroad. Highlights of the 2006-2007 season include debuts with Ft. Worth Symphony and Iris Chamber Orchestra, a return engagement for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series, and solo recitals for The Lied Center, The Ramsi P. Tick Concert Series in Buffalo, and Vancouver's Music in the Mornings series. In addition to several appearances at international guitar festivals in the US, Mexico and Europe, Mr. Vieaux has recently performed on major series in such halls as the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Cleveland's Severance Hall, Spivey Hall, and New York's 92 St. Y and Merkin Hall.

Jason Vieaux has eight recordings to his credit and many more to come with his multi-record deal with Azica Records. His latest release, Images of Metheny, is a disc of music by American Jazz guitarist/composer Pat Metheny. Metheny, after listening to this landmark recording, declared: "I am flattered to be included in Jason's musical world. And I am honored that a musician of his stature has directed his considerable talents to manifest such beautiful and true renditions of these pieces in such a personal way." Sevilla: The Music of Isaac Albeniz, was rated one of the Top Ten Classical CDs of 2003 by The Philadelphia Inquirer and Cleveland’s Plain Dealer. Mr. Vieaux recorded his first CD when he was just 19; two years later this was followed by Laureate Series Guitar Recital on Naxos, which went on to sell over 40,000 copies internationally. Vieaux also has two duo CDs with flutist Gary Schocker, Dream Travels and Arioso. Mr. Vieaux's recordings and live performances are heard nationally on the radio and worldwide via the Internet, and he is regularly broadcast via NPR, on such top-rated programs as "Performance Today", "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition". A solo CD of Bach lute works is scheduled for a fall 2007 release.

Jason Vieaux began guitar studies at age eight with Jeremy Sparks in Buffalo, New York, and continued study at The Cleveland Institute of Music with John Holmquist. He is the youngest First Prize winner in the history of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Competition, a Naumburg International Guitar Competition prizewinner, and a recipient of The Cleveland Institute of Music's Alumni Achievement Award. In 1995, Mr. Vieaux was honored as an Artistic Ambassador of the United States to Southeast Asia, concertizing in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar (Burma). He has also toured Europe, Mexico, Canada, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Vieaux is a regularly featured guest with orchestras across the United States. He has performed as concerto soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Pops, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Auckland Philharmonia, Santa Fe Symphony and San Diego Symphony, working with such conductors as Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Luis Biava, Jahja Ling, Rossen Milanov, Stefan Sanderling, Gareth Morrell, Steven Smith and Carl Topilow. As a passionate advocate of new music, Vieaux has premièred new pieces by José Luis Merlin, Eric Sessler, Arthur Hernandez, Gary Schocker and Fazil Say, and plays works by Allen Krantz, Mario Davidovsky, Augusta Read-Thomas, Roberto Sierra and John Corigliano.

Aside from his duties as a performer, Mr. Vieaux is highly dedicated to the art of teaching. He currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio, where he is Head of the Cleveland Institute of Music Guitar Department, making him the youngest Department Head to serve at the prestigious conservatory. He is also affiliated with Philadelphia-based Astral Artistic Services.


www.jasonvieaux.com

Program Notes

Capricho Arabe 
Francisco Tarréga (1852-1909)

Convinced the guitar was unsuitable for classical music, Francisco Tárrega studied piano and composition at the Madrid Conservatory. But his composition teacher Emilio Arrieta, on hearing Tárrega play a guitar recital, embraced him and exclaimed: "The guitar needs you, and you were born for her!" Capricho Arabe is a tribute to Moorish history, with echoes of the Arabic lute and guitar harmonies.  --  Tom Poore

El Decameron Negro 
Leo Brouwer (b. 1939)

     El Arpa del Guerrero (The Warrior's Harp)

     La Huida de los Amantes por el Valle de los Ecos
          (The Flight of the Lovers)

     Balada del Doncella Enamorada (Ballad of the loving maiden)

The Afro-Cuban composer, classical guitarist and conductor we now know as Leo Brouwer was named Juan Leovigildo Brouwer when he was born in Havana, Cuba.  Leo began playing the guitar at age 13 and made his professional debut at 17.  His academic training took place in the U.S., at Julliard and at the Hartt College of Music.  Brouwer gained an international reputation in the 1960's and 70's as a leading guitar virtuoso, but his playing career ended prematurely in the early 80's due to an injury to a tendon in his right hand. He redirected his focus to composition and conducting to even greater success. Today, Leo Brouwer's music is performed by more guitarists than any other living composer. His music appears on hundreds of recordings, and he has scored over 60 films, including the highly-acclaimed award-winning 1993 film, Like Water for Chocolate.

As a composer, Brouwer is primarily self-taught. His compositions reflect classical, Afro-Cuban, jazz and avant-garde influences.  The composer has referred to his current compositional style as "national Hyper-Romanticism:" a return to Afro-Cuban roots mixed with elements of tonality, traditional form, programmatic gestures, and minimalism. El Decameron Negro (1981) was the first solo guitar piece of the "national Hyper-Romantic" style. The work consists of three ballads based upon the set of short stories collected by the ethnologist Frobenius during his fundamental research on African culture. The work is based on African legends which were arranged into a narrative about a warrior-hero who wished to be a musician.  His devotion to music clashes with the rigid tribal laws of his people. Exiled and forced to abandon his beloved, he is finally recalled by the tribe, then in peril, and agrees to fight and win the last battle in exchange for the freedom to become a musician and live with his woman.  --  notes edited by Kathryn Cardy

 

Five Songs in Baroque Style
Pat Metheny (1954-)
(arr. Vieaux)

             Prelude ("Last Train Home")    

             Allemande ("Antonia")

             Chaconne ("Tell Her You Saw Me")

             Gavotte and Double ("Question and Answer")

             Gigue ("James")

American jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny (1954-) inhabits a rare confluence in the music world: He has had an enormous influence over subsequent generations of musicians while enjoying the respect and admiration of his musical colleagues, all the while experiencing one of the most popular and successful careers in American jazz music. I have taken five of his compositions and recast them as a Baroque dance suite. Rather than use standard 18th-century chord progressions underneath the melodies, this idea of a multi-movement piece seemed to work better by arranging each song with Metheny's original contemporary harmony, and instead let the traditional rhythms of an Allemande, Gavotte, Gigue, etc., create the feel of Baroque-era dances.  --  Jason Vieaux

Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998
J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
(arr. Vieaux)

Johann Sebastian Bach was not only one of the greatest keyboard players of his day, but he was also a skilled performer on other instruments, not least the lute, for which composed four suites, a Prelude in C Minor, and the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro. Bach's interest in the lute was nurtured by his friend Sylvius Leopold Weiss, the most renowned German lutenist of his day, who from 1717 until his death in 1750 (less than three months after Bach's passing) was the resident virtuoso with the court orchestra at Dresden. It was probably under the inspiration of Weiss' six suites and many independent pieces for lute that Bach composed his Prelude, Fugus and Allegro (BWV 998) during the 1740's.  --  Richard E. Rodda

The Bat
Pat Metheny
(arr. Vieaux)               

"The Bat" is from an album Metheny recorded in 1981 with drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Charlie Haden and tenor sax players Michael Brecker and Dewey Redman. The famous Pat Metheny Group recorded the composition a year later on the "Offramp" album, with a completely different instrumental and sonic arrangement. Given the metric freedom of both versions, the former in a more traditional jazz group context and the latter in a more contemporary atmospheric mode, my arrangement is a combination of the two sounds and textures. The guitaristic effect of the tremolo (e.g., Tárrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra), best recreated the sonic effect of the latter version, while the "solo" I wrote over the chord changes hearkens back to the original version.  --  Jason Vieaux

 

"Cuba" (from Suite Española, Op. 47) 
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
(arr. Vieaux)

Torre Bermeja
(Serenata from Douze Pieces Characteristiques, Op. 92, No. 12)

Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) was a child prodigy on the piano, giving public performances at the age of four and entering the Madrid Conservatory at the age of nine. "Cuba" is from his Suite Española, Op. 47 (1886). Cuba was still an important part of the Spanish empire, although an increasingly restless colony. Albeniz' father worked for a while as a customs officer in Havana, and probably arranged for his son's visit and brief concert tour there in 1887.

The Torre Bermeja ("Vermilion Towers") at the foot of the Alhambra are the remains of the outer fortifications of the medieval fortress: as early as the ninth century, a Moorish poet referred to the Kal'at al-Hamra, or "red castle," a reference to the iron-infused clay from which local bricks and concrete were formed. A turn-of-the-century Baedeker guidebook describes the towers as Albéniz would have seen them -- as a military prison that admitted tourists! --advising that they should be visited after the Alhambra and Generalife "for the picturesque view they command...The extensive buildings, including large cisterns, underground stables, and casements for 200 men, give an excellent insight into the Moorish art of fortification. A steep staircase ascends to the platform (azotea) of the chief tower, whence the best view is enjoyed.  --  Richard Long