Biography

Guitarist Jason Vieaux has become one of the most prominent American players of his instrument, achieving both critical and popular success. He is also a teacher who was among the pioneers in using the Internet as an educational medium. Vieaux was born in Buffalo, New York, on July 17, 1973. He started taking lessons there at age eight with Jeremy Sparks and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, for further work with John Holmquist at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Vieaux snared major recognition with a win in 1992 at the Guitar Foundation of America International Competition, becoming the event's youngest winner in history. He also took home a prize at the Naumburg International Guitar Competition. In 1995, Vieaux began a stint as an official Arts Ambassador of the U.S. in Southeast Asia, touring Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand, among other countries. Following this appointment, he launched a 53-city tour of the U.S. and France, and ever since, he has been in demand as a recitalist. Vieaux released his first album, a collection of Spanish guitar music, on the Naxos label in 1996. In 1997, he began teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and in 2001, he was a founder of the guitar department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Vieaux was also a pioneer in developing formal guitar instruction over the Internet, establishing the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar on the ArtistWorks platform in 2012. Vieaux won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2015 for his album Play. He signed with the Azica label, releasing an album of guitar sonatas by Manuel Ponce in 2001, and since then, he has recorded mostly for that label. Vieaux has issued music by the tango-classical crossover composer Astor Piazzolla and by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny in addition to traditional repertory. He has performed concertos with nearly 100 orchestras around North America, and he has collaborated with the Escher String Quartet and with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. A supporter of new music, he has premiered works by Keith Fitch, Vivian Fung, David Ludwig, and other contemporary composers. By the early 2020s, Vieaux's recording catalog had grown to some 20 items. He appeared in 2021 on Metheny's Road to the Sun album, and the following year, he issued the second in a two-volume set of transcriptions for guitar of Bach's music for solo violin. ~ James Manheim, Rovi