On Friday, February 24, 2012 at 7:30pm, guitarist Jason Vieaux will perform as part of The Legendary Salon, presented by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) at Alice Tully Hall (65th Street and Broadway, NYC). The concert marks Vieaux’s CMS debut.
With soprano Dina Kuznetsova, he will perform English Renaissance composer John Dowland’s beautiful and melancholy songs Can She Excuse my Wrongs, Flow My Tears, and Come Again, sweet love doth now invite; as well as 20th century Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas (Seven Popular Spanish Songs), which explores music from the different regions of Spain.
“It’s always very refreshing to accompany singers with the guitar, and the Falla songs are just perfect for a guitar arrangement,” Vieaux said. “Many of the gestures Falla was going for in the piano writing are meant to evoke or even imitate the Spanish guitar.” He continued, “John Dowland’s solo dances were among my earliest concert pieces as a youth in Buffalo, and to have this opportunity to perform them with Dina at Lincoln Center is really a thrill.”
The February 24 concert will also include Stravinsky’s Pastorale, Françaix’s String Trio, Debussy’s En Blanc et Noir for Two Pianos, and Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15. In addition to Vieaux and Kuznetsova, performers include Juho Pohjonen, piano; Orion Weiss, piano; Yura Lee, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; Jakob Koranyi, cello; Stephen Taylor, oboe; Randall Ellis, oboe; Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet, and Peter Kolkay, bassoon.
The Legendary Salon is a selection of works that were performed at the musical salon of American arts patron Winnaretta Singer (heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune), also known as the Princesse de Polignac, in Paris and Venice from 1888 through the early 1940s. The concert will be preceded by a discussion with Sylvia Kahan, author of Music’s Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac at 6:30pm in the Rose Studio, free for ticket holders.
About the artist: Guitarist Jason Vieaux is expanding the definition of what it means to be a classical guitarist and changing the face of guitar programming, building a devoted audience and fan base along the way. Vieaux is a musician noted for virtuosic and stirring performances, imaginative programming, and uncommon communicative gifts. His collaborations with the Escher Quartet, flutist Gary Schocker, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and bandoneon/accordion virtuoso Julien Labro continue to display Vieaux’s broad range of musical interests. Recent career highlights include solo performances at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Chautauqua Festival, and a return to Music@Menlo.
Last fall, Vieaux co-founded The Curtis Institute of Music Guitar Department with guitarist David Starobin. He has been Head of the Guitar Department of the Cleveland Institute of Music since 2001, is also affiliated with Philadelphia’s Astral Artists.
In addition to making his debut with CMS, this season he also made his debut at the Caramoor Festival and has numerous return engagements, including appearances at the 92nd St. Y Guitar Marathon, the Peninsula Music Festival, the Maverick Series, Fontana Chamber Arts, the Elgin Symphony, and a Hartt School of Music residency. An extensive chamber music tour with The Curtis Institute of Music is slated for spring 2012. In 2011-2012 Vieaux performs concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Richmond, Kitchener-Waterloo and Amarillo, featuring works by Rodrigo, Vivaldi, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Roberto Sierra. He has to date played concertos with more than 50 orchestras, working with conductors David Robertson, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Stefan Sanderling, David Lockington, Andrew Constantine, and Alasdair Neale. His triumphant programs for Music@Menlo, the Strings Music Festival, the Grand Teton Festival and the Jupiter Chamber Players have forged his reputation as a first-rate chamber musician. Vieaux’s passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Dan Visconti, David Ludwig, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Eric Sessler, José Luis Merlin and Gary Schocker.
Jason Vieaux has eleven albums to his credit, with more to come through his contract with Azica Records. A new album of Astor Piazzolla’s music with bandoneonist Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra was released in 2011, and a new solo disc will arrive in 2013. His Bach: Works for Lute, Vol.1 hit No. 13 on Billboard’s Classical Chart a week after its release, and received rave reviews by Gramophone, The Absolute Sound, and Soundboard. Vieaux's recordings and live performances are regularly broadcast on radio and the internet, and he writes on various classical music topics for National Public Radio’s Deceptive Cadence blog series. His communicative gifts are the subject of feature articles in print and internet media outlets around the world every year, including magazines such as Acoustic Guitar, MUSO, and Gramophone.
