Grammy-Winning Guitarist Jason Vieaux to Perform at Caramoor as Artist-in-Residence

Grammy-winning classical guitarist Jason Vieaux is currently Caramoor's Artist-in-Residence, and will be performing two more concerts in July at the popular bucolic musical destination. On Sunday, July 16 at 4pm, he joins the Orchestra of St. Luke's to perform iconic tango composer Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires with bandoneonist Julien Labro, a piece which he and Labro recorded in 2011 for Azica Records. Vieaux will also perform Vivaldi's beloved Guitar Concerto in D Major with the orchestra. Vivaldi's Four Seasons featuring violin soloist Krista Bennion Feeney completes the program.

On Thursday, July 27 at 7pm, Vieaux gives a solo recital in Caramoor's outdoor Sunken Garden, featuring classical and contemporary guitar music that spans the globe - from Italy and Argentina to Mexico, Brazil, and the US - including selections from his 2015 Grammy Award-winning album, Play. The concert will include Giuliani's Handel Variations; Bach's Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998; Ponce's Sonatina Meridional; Morel's Choro, Danza in E Minor, Danza Brasilera; Duke Ellington's In a Sentimental Mood (arr. Vieaux); and Jobim's A Felicidade (arr. Roland Dyens).

Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, "among the elite of today's classical guitarists" (Gramophone), is the guitarist that goes beyond the classical. NPR describes Vieaux as, "perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation." His most recent solo album, Play, won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. In June 2014, NPR named "Zapateado" from the album as one of its "50 Favorite Songs of 2014 (So Far)."

Vieaux has earned a reputation for putting his expressiveness and virtuosity at the service of a remarkably wide range of music, and his schedule of performing, teaching, and recording commitments is distinguished throughout the U.S. and abroad. His solo recitals have been a feature at every major guitar series in North America and at many of the important guitar festivals in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Mexico. Recent and future highlights include returns to the Caramoor Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and New York's 92Y, as well as his Ravinia Festival debut and performances at Argentina's Teatro Colon and Oslo, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and Norway's Classical Music Fest. Vieaux's appearances for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bard Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Strings Music Festival, Grand Teton, and many others have forged his reputation as a first-rate chamber musician and programmer. He collaborates in recitals this season with Escher Quartet, acclaimed harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, and accordion/bandoneón virtuoso Julien Labro. Vieaux's passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Avner Dorman, Dan Visconti, Vivian Fung, Keith Fitch, Kinan Abou-Afach, David Ludwig, Jerod Tate, Eric Sessler, José Luis Merlin, Jeff Beal, Gary Schocker and more.

Jason Vieaux has performed as concerto soloist with over 100 orchestras, including Cleveland, Houston, Toronto, San Diego, Ft. Worth, Charlotte, Buffalo, Grand Rapids, Kitchener-Waterloo, Richmond, IRIS Chamber, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Chautauqua Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and New Hampshire Music Festival. Some of the conductors he has worked with include David Robertson, Donato Cabrera, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Jahja Ling, Stefan Sanderling, Michael Stern, David Lockington, Steven Smith, Gerard Schwarz, and Edwin Outwater. During the 2016-2017 season, Jason Vieaux will make appearances with 11 symphony orchestras throughout the US and Canada, including return engagements with the Santa Fe and Edmonton Symphonies, Piazzolla's Double Concerto with Julien Labro and the Arkansas Symphony, and engagements with the symphonies of Niagra, Stockton, Illinois, and West Virginia. Vieaux will also be performing Dan Visconti's new guitar concerto, Living Language, which he premiered with California Symphony in May 2016, with the symphonies of Reading, Fort Wayne, and Richmond.

Vieaux continues to bring important repertoire alive in the recording studio as well. His latest album, Infusion with bandoneonist Julien Labro, was released in October 2016 on Azica Records and features Vieaux and Labro in Labro's arrangements of Leo Brouwer's Tres Danzas Concertantes and Piazzolla's Escualo, his arrangement of Radamés Gnattali's Suite Retratos with bassist Peter Dominguez and percussionist Jamey Haddad, Pat Metheny's Antonia, and Vieaux's arrangement of iconic 1980s British rock band Tears for Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World. His duo album Together, with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, was released in January 2015. Of his Grammy-winning 2014 solo album Play, Soundboard Magazine writes, "If you ever want to give a friend a disc that will cement his or her love for the guitar, this is a perfect candidate," while Premier Guitar claims, "You'd be hard pressed to find versions performed with more confidence, better tone, and a more complete understanding of the material."

Vieaux's previous albums include a recording of Astor Piazzolla's music with Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra; Images of Metheny, featuring music by American jazz legend Pat Metheny (who after hearing this landmark recording declared: "I am flattered to be included in Jason's musical world"); and Sevilla: The Music of Isaac Albeniz, which made several Top Ten lists the year of its release. Jason Vieaux's 2009 album Bach: Works for Lute, Vol. 1 hit No. 13 on Billboard's Classical Chart after its first week and received rave reviews. Vieaux's albums and live performances are regularly heard on radio and internet around the world, and his work is the subject of feature articles in print and online around the world, including such magazines as Acoustic Guitar, MUSO, Gramophone, and on NPR's "Deceptive Cadence." Vieaux was the first classical musician to be featured on NPR's popular "Tiny Desk" series, on which he made a rare repeat performance in 2015 with Yolanda Kondonassis.

In 2012, the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar was launched with ArtistWorks Inc., an unprecedented technological interface that provides one-on-one online study with Vieaux for guitar students around the world. In 2011, he co-founded the guitar department at The Curtis Institute of Music, and in 2015 was invited to inaugurate the guitar program at the Eastern Music Festival. Vieaux has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1997, heading the guitar department since 2001.

Vieaux is affiliated with Philadelphia's Astral Artists. His primary teachers were Jeremy Sparks and John Holmquist. In 1992 he was awarded the prestigious GFA International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner ever. He is also honored with a Naumburg Foundation top prize, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award, and a Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant. In 1995, Vieaux was an Artistic Ambassador of the U.S. to Southeast Asia. Jason Vieaux is represented by Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd and plays a 2013 Gernot Wagner guitar with Augustine Strings.

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