Jason Vieaux Releases GRATITUDE Solo Guitar Album on Azica Records
The new album features a collection of Vieaux's original compositions for solo guitar.
GRAMMY-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux has released Gratitude, a collection of his original compositions for solo guitar, on September 18 through Azica Records. Continually on the road throughout his international performing career, Vieaux wrote the works featured on Gratitude when he was able to spend uninterrupted, precious weeks at home with his wife and two young children due to the pandemic.
After many years of performing and teaching, Vieaux had become accustomed to always practicing for something in the very near future. 'Being at home for an extended period of time with no concert to prepare for was bizarre, and had never occurred in my professional life,' the artist shares in his album liner notes.
'In the past, I had often considered composing, and always had a lot of improvised snippets lying around, but there was never any time to actually put pen to paper and document these musical ideas. Unexpectedly, I had the time to flesh out these ideas and turn them into real compositions. And, to also be a full-time Dad, which was an awesome challenge for a 'road-dog,'' he adds.
The resulting collection of works represent a time of connection, reflection, growth, and love. Vieaux premiered the title track, 'Gratitude,' at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival and dedicated it to his mother, who passed away later that year. That concert was the last one she was able to attend. The wistful and meaningful 'Ellicottville Rondo' recalls summer family visits in Western New York ski country. 'Home' is a right-hand tremolo study in an Open G tuning. 'December Etudes' are six lyrical and evocative études, each focusing on a specific musical or technical classical guitar skill. All but one uses a cell from a popular song melody, tracing the soundtrack of the Vieaux family's uninterrupted time spent together.
Described as 'perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation' by NPR, Vieaux has a vibrant career as an artist of brilliance and uncompromised mastery. He has appeared with leading orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Nashville Symphony, and has been featured on prominent international stages such as Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Concert Hall, Sala São Paulo, and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He performs regularly on celebrated series including at San Francisco Performances, Chamber Music Society, and the 92nd Street Y as well as such festivals as Ravinia, Caramoor, Domaine-Forget, Music@Menlo, Round Top, and the Eastern Music Festival.
Jason Vieaux won the 2014 GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Classical Solo for Play. The Huffington Post declared Play as 'part of the revitalized interest in the classical guitar'. Vieaux's discography also includes his Bach, Volume 2: Works for Violin, released on Azica in 2022, as well as Shining Night featuring his duo with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers (Avie Records) and Michael Fine's Concierto del Luna with flutist Alexa Still (Sony Classical). Vieaux recorded Pat Metheny's 'Four Paths of Light', a solo work dedicated to him by Pat, for Metheny's 2021 album Road to the Sun.
In 2011, Vieaux co-founded the guitar department at the Curtis Institute of Music with David Starobin. A winner of the Guitar Foundation of America Competition, Vieaux has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His online guitar school for ArtistWorks has hundreds of subscribers from all over the world. Jason plays a 2013 Gernot Wagner guitar made in Frankfurt.
For more information, visit jasonvieaux.com.
