Legendary Guitarist and Composer Pat Metheny Returns to CAP UCLA on Dream Box Solo Tour

Legendary guitarist, composer and improviser, Pat Metheny, returns to UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) to headline Royce Hall on Sunday, October 29 at 7 pm.

The 20-time Grammy-winning artist launched his solo tour in conjunction with his latest album release, Dream Box, which features personal and fan favorites from his esteemed nearly 50-year career. Tickets are available now at cap.ucla.edu, by phone 310-825-2101 or at the UCLA Central Ticket Office. 

Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life the following year (1975), he reinvented the traditional "jazz guitar" sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Metheny has continued to redefine the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument. He has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. His 20 Grammy Awards are  spread out over a variety of different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo and Best Instrumental Composition — at one point winning seven consecutive Grammys for seven consecutive albums. In 2015 Metheny was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth guitarist to be included and its youngest member. 

In addition to his success as a performing artist, Metheny is an accomplished music educator. At 18, he was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than twenty years later (1996). Metheny has taught music workshops all over the world, from the Dutch Royal Conservatory and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to clinics in Asia and South America. 

Metheny has been a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music and was one of the very first jazz musicians to treat the synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. Years before the invention of MIDI technology, Metheny was using the Synclavier as a composing tool. He also has been instrumental in the development of several new kinds of guitars such as the soprano acoustic guitar, the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez's PM series jazz guitars and a variety of other custom instruments. Metheny continues to be one of the brightest stars of the jazz community, dedicating time to both his own projects and those of emerging artists and established veterans alike, helping them to reach their audience as well as realizing their own artistic visions.

The CAP UCLA 2023 fall programs continue on November 3-4 with Omar Offendum's The Little Syria Show at The Nimoy. 

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is the public-facing research and presenting organization for the performing arts at the University of California, Los Angeles—one of the world's leading public research universities. We are housed within the UCLA School of the Arts & Architecture along with the Hammer and Fowler museums. The central pursuit of our work as an organization is to sustain the diversity of contemporary performing artists while celebrating their contributions to culture. We acknowledge, amplify and support artists through major presentations, commissions and creative development initiatives. Our programs offer audiences a direct connection to the ideas, perspectives and concerns of living artists. Through the lens of dance, theater, music, literary arts, digital media arts and collaborative disciplines, informed by diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, artists and audiences come together in our theaters and public spaces to explore new ways of seeing that expands our understanding of the world we live in now.

To post a comment, you must register and login.