Music

Bach Volume 2: Works for Violin is available now on Azica Records.

“Electric guitar wizards such as Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen aren’t the only shredmasters who can melt your face with a killer solo. The classical guitar has its heavy hitters and virtuosic repertoire too – it’s all just a few decibels softer. Consider Jason Vieaux. The notes cascade in waterfalls, and in Vieaux’s immaculate, joyful performance you hear all of Bach’s interlocking voices, propelled by a steady beat and singing line. This is guitar playing at its most shred-worthy and satisfying.” Tom Huizinga, NPR

Anne Akiko Meyers’s quest for creative collaborations has inspired countless commissions and world-premieres, with the results infusing Shining Night, an album that embraces themes of love, poetry and nature. Jason Vieaux appears on over half of the album’s tracks including a full performance of Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango.

Jason Vieaux collaborates with flutist Alexa Still, conductor Philip Mann, and Ensemble Bravura to world premiere “Concierto de Luna”, a flute and guitar concerto written by Michael Fine and commissioned by Mann.

Critically acclaimed jazz guitarist Pat Metheny’s Road to the Sun features a four-movement solo guitar suite  Four Paths Of Light for Jason Vieaux which was released on Modern Recordings on March 5, 2021.

On this May 2019 release, Jason performs the world-premiere recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Concerto for Guitar. Distinguished by The New York Times as ”a leader of contemporary American lyricism,” composer Jonathan Leshnoff is renowned for his music’s striking harmonies, structural complexity and powerful themes. Leshnoff’s works have been performed by more than 60 orchestras worldwide, including commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, and Nashville Symphony orchestras, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux joins forces with the esteemed Escher Quartet to produce a recording with some new and old works with dance themes in common. These three works may share elements of dance-inspired music, and contain actual allusions to specific dances in the titles (or expressive markings) of certain movements, but that is where the similarities end. These guitar quintets, all from very different periods, couldnt be any more different from each other in style, timbre, texture and dynamics. They show the musical range and flexibility of the guitar within a more traditional chamber music group setting.

This 2-disc set grew out of the fascination of Robert von Bahr, founder and managing director of BIS Records, for the television series House of Cards.  To complement the concerto a selection of music from the series was agreed upon, but with five seasons worth of instalments to choose from, this quickly grew into a large-scale (very large-scale!) House of Cards Symphony which at 83 minutes takes up a disc all on its own. So now the decision was made to record and present a lavish two disc-set, with three further works: Six Sixteen for guitar and orchestra (performed by Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux), Canticle for strings and a brand new House of Cards Fantasy for flute and orchestra.

Internationally acclaimed harpist Yolanda Kondonassis is the executive producer of Ginastera: One Hundred, released in October 2016 on Oberlin Music and distributed by Naxos. The album celebrates the centennial year of the iconic Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, featuring Yolanda Kondonassis in Ginastera’s Harp Concerto, Op. 25, recorded with the Oberlin Symphony Orchestra and conductor Raphael Jimenez; Gil Shaham in Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 1, Op. 16 for violin and piano; Orli Shaham in Danzas Argentinas; and Jason Vieaux in Ginastera’s Sonata for Guitar, Op. 47. The album also features extensively researched liner notes by James O’Leary and historical photos of the composer provided by Boosey & Hawkes.

Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux and internationally acclaimed composer, bandoneónist, and accordionist Julien Labro released their second duo album, Infusion, on Azica Records in October 2016. Infusion includes Julien 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. Classical Guitar Magazine writes, “Always on the hunt for something a little different, Jason Vieaux teams up with French accordion/bandoneon phenom Julien Labro for an invigorating program…”

Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and guitarist Jason Vieaux have come “Together” to create a recording featuring two world premieres for the duo. Each of the five works on this recording shows off the unique character of the harp/guitar combination in general, with the two premieres especially revealing the engaging musical personalities and communicative skills of this duo in particular. Since making her debut at age 18 with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Yolanda Kondonassis has been celebrated as one of the world’s premier solo harpists and is widely regarded as todays most recorded classical harpist.

Guitar virtuoso Jason Vieaux’s solo album Play won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Released on Azica Records in January 2014, the album celebrates Jason Vieaux’s 20th anniversary as a performer by featuring the Spanish, Mexican, South American, Cuban, French, and American classics that Vieaux has found to be universal audience favorites over the past two decades. The music includes showpieces by Barrios, Sagreras, Bustamante, and Sainz De La Maza, Tárrega’s classics Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Capricho Arabe, Vieaux’s own in-demand arrangement of Duke Ellington’s In A Sentimental Mood, and Andrew York’s popular Sunburst.

Everything about this album is great: the arrangements, the performances, and the recording quality. Once again Jason Vieaux proves himself to be a masterful musician – Julien Labro’s bandoneon playing would surly make Piazzolla smile – A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra are superb collaborators who easily negotiate the tricky rhythms and special tango techniques. While The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and Histoire du Tango have become standard concert repertoire, the Double Concerto for Bandoneón, Guitar, & String Orchestra is a spectacular composition that for many reasons is not heard often enough: the performance by Vieaux and Labro is outstanding and alone worth the cost of admission. Gail Wein’s extremely well written liner notes provide valuable historical context. – ClevelandClassical.com

The outstanding young American guitarist Jason Vieaux is distinguished by his pure, beautiful tone and the high rhythmic profile he favors in his performances. The Buffalo, NY native shows an uncanny ability to shape the tonal contour of a work of music with such clarity that there is never any ambiguity about what its purpose is and where he is heading. These traits serve him in good stead in his latest offering on the Azica label, a boldly conceived vision of J.S. Bach’s Lute Suites, BWV 995-998, transcribed for Vieaux’s instrument so idiomatically, we might believe they were originally written with the guitar in mind. – Atlanta Audio Society

The arrangements and performance featured on classical guitarist Jason Vieaux’s 2005 solo recording, Images of Metheny, confirms the fact that Metheny writes wonderful and evocative melodies which fit—or, more precisely belong on—the guitar. The liner notes accompanying the recording consist principally of a conversation between the performer and new music maven John Schaefer. Early in the interview, in response to Schaefer’s questions, Vieaux confirms two important points about this recording. First, although the recording features arrangements of works by a jazz musician, it is clearly not a jazz recording. Second, the focus of this recording is melody, the real mainstay of Pat Metheny’s success as a composer. – Jeffrey Noonan, University of Illinois Press