Jason Vieaux (born July 17, 1973, in Buffalo, New York) is an American classical guitarist. He began his musical training in Buffalo, New York at the age of eight, after which he continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1992, Vieaux was awarded the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner. NPR describes him as, "perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation," and Gramophone magazine puts him "among the elite of today's classical guitarists." His album Play won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Career highlights

Jason Vieaux has performed as a concerto soloist with over 100 orchestras, including Cleveland, Houston, Toronto, San Diego, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Buffalo, Richmond, Edmonton, Auckland, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Chautauqua Festival. Some of the conductors he has worked with include David Lockington, David Robertson, Edwin Outwater, Jahja Ling, Michael Stern, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Stefan Sanderling, Gerard Schwarz, Giancarlo Guerrero, and Steven Smith. Vieaux's appearances for Caramoor Summer Music Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York's 92nd Street Y, Music@Menlo, Strings Music Festival, Grand Teton, Argentina's Teatro Colón, and many others have forged his reputation as a first-rate performer and curator of programs. As a chamber musician Jason Vieaux regularly performs and collaborates with Escher String Quartet, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, and accordion/bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro. Vieaux's passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Avner Dorman, Jeff Beal, Dan Visconti, Vivian Fung, David Ludwig, Jonathan Leshnoff, Jerod Tate, Gary Schocker, and Eric Sessler. In 2021, notable Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny dedicated Four Paths Of Light , a four-movement guitar solo work, to Jason Vieaux which Vieaux has recorded for the Pat Metheny album Road to the Sun.

Teaching

Jason Vieaux co-founded the guitar department at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2011 and has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1997, heading the guitar department since 2001. In 2012, the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar was launched with ArtistWorks, a technological interface that provides one-on-one online study with Vieaux for guitar students around the world.

Composing

Vieaux has arranged and composed pieces for the guitar throughout his career. Since 2020, he has self-published scores for his original compositions.

Instrument

Jason Vieaux currently performs on a Gernot Wagner guitar made in 2013. Wagner is based in Frankfurt, Germany. The guitar is made in the "double-top" or "laminate-top" style of classical guitar construction.

Notable achievements, awards, and honors

Discography

Solo: Chamber: Guest: Albums with a * are Grammy-nominated.