Guitarist Jason Vieaux, Santa Fe Symphony to perform sold out show

Dec. 25—Classical guitar maestro Jason Vieaux will perform with the Santa Fe Symphony on Christmas Eve at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

The Grammy Award winner will land in New Mexico between dual professorships at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, and his online guitar classes on artistworks.com and a touring schedule that sees him flying from Amsterdam to Seoul, South Korea.

"I used to do this with no problem in my 30s," Vieaux said. "It's a little hard in my 50s with two kids.

"My best playing ever was this year," he added. "I started prioritizing sleep — putting it even ahead of practice."

The guitarist estimates he has played in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque at least four times. On Christmas Eve, Vieaux will perform Antonio Vivaldi's "Guitar Concerto in D Major," as well as Joaquín Rodrigo's famous "Concierto de Aranjuez."

The "Concierto de Aranjuez" is perhaps the most famous guitar concerto ever written.

"I think this is my third time playing it with (Santa Fe,)" Vieaux said. "The second movement's played by everybody from Miles Davis to Chick Corea and Led Zeppelin. Apparently (Zeppelin) did it all through the '77 tour. 'Spain' by Chick Corea quotes the melody."

Davis' famous "Sketches of Spain" album plays the jazzman's arrangement on all of side one, he added.

"It's one of those things that led to pop culture," Vieaux said.

"The outer movements are a happy recollection of his honeymoon," he continued. "His wife said the second movement is all about a stillborn. The last notes are all about the child going to heaven.

"That's why it's so beloved," Vieaux added. "That's why people are often moved to tears. You can hear them" in the audience.

The Vivaldi is one of the composer's most popular concertos.

"The second movement is a really fast movement," Vieaux said. "I remember it from a coffee commercial when I was a kid. The John Williams recording I listened to all the time when I was a kid."

He also loved the guitar-heavy early Beatles, thanks to his mother's albums.

"She heard me singing harmonies," he said. "I'd be banging out the drums."

His mother also gave him his first classical guitar when he was 5 years old. Then the Buffalo Guitar Quartet performed at his school.

"They all had on John Lennon glasses," Vieaux said. His mother coaxed private lessons from founding quartet member Jeremy Sparks.

"I was one of those weird kids that the parents didn't have to lean on to practice," Vieaux said. "Around 13 or 14 I started to get serious about it."

Today, Vieaux is famous for his ping-pong ball manicure. He glues a slice to the underside of his right thumbnail as a kind of extended press-on nail guitar pick.

"I'm going to get one more today or tomorrow," he said.

After the concert, he'll take a nap on the plane and fly home to his family in Cleveland on Christmas Day.

National Public Radio called Vieaux "perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation."