PREVIEW: Jason Vieaux’s Candlelight Concert at Darrow School
08/29 @ Darrow School, New Lebanon
Photo by Asia Margo
“I'm very thankful to be on stage and provide so much joy to people through the years through music.”
“My music sounds a bit more Americana, almost stuff that could be played on a steel-string guitar, on a country guitar.”
That’s how classical guitarist Jason Vieaux describes his own compositions featured on his forthcoming album, Gratitude. Ahead of the album’s September 18 release, The Grammy award-winning performer, composer, and teacher is set to perform an evening of solo guitar works by himself and others at the Darrow School in New Lebanon, NY on August 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Gratitude is the culmination of years of pre-concert improvisations turned into fully-notated works as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long before that, Vieaux’s wife suggested that he write down some of these warm-ups. It wasn’t until Vieaux’s busy touring and teaching schedule was wiped clean in the spring of 2020, however, that he found the time to develop them.
“If I had an idea, I'd have the freedom and time to just flesh it out, and I could take as long or little time as I wanted to do it.”
Several of the solo works that came out of those writing sessions found their ways onto countless post-pandemic recitals, including “Home,” a tremolo-heavy piece Vieaux has been playing for years on the road. Recorded in 2025, Gratitude showcases music that would easily find their own “homes” in both a book of Classical-era etudes or a fingerstyle folk compendium.
Aside from his own work, Vieaux’s repertoire is deep. “I’m known for a couple of Bach recordings, and I love playing that music,” he says, but continues, “typically a solo program that I like to present has a lot of different styles of music from different eras.” True to his word, his upcoming performance will feature works spanning nearly 300 years of music from around the globe, including work by J.S. Bach, Isaac Albéniz, José Luis Merlin, Pat Metheny, and, of course, Vieaux himself.
Vieaux recorded two albums of Bach compositions, a 2009 record of lute arrangements and a 2022 record of violin arrangements. But it was 2014’s Play that earned him the following year’s Grammy award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Two works from that album, Agustín Barrios’ “Vals in G Major” and Francisco Tárrega’s “Capricho Arabe” will also be featured on the Darrow School program.
Speaking of Pat Metheny, the genre-bending guitarist and composer wrote “Fourth Paths of Light”— also on the Darrow School program — for Vieaux in 2018.
“He was coming to see a lot of my performances in concertos and chamber music in New York,” Vieaux says of Metheny, who had pitched the idea of writing something 10 years before the actual score arrived. Vieaux learned the 20-minute piece in just three months before recording it in February 2019. “Normally I would like a little bit longer period to learn it, but for that guy, I was going to put [the] time aside.” The work is now a staple of Vieaux’s regular repertoire. “I play it as much as I can,” he says joyfully.
In the liner notes to Gratitude, the guitarist, who has played with major ensembles like the Cleveland Orchestra and the Houston Symphony and headlined at Carnegie Hall, dedicates the album to his parents, his wife and children, and his producer Alan Bise. His dedication to his instrument and the people he loves, evident in both the liner notes and our conversation, extends to his audiences: “I’m very thankful to be on stage and provide so much joy to people through the years through music.”
For tickets and more information, visit: https://capitalregionclassical.org/product/jason-vieaux-2/
