For those unaware, today, GRAMMY-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists” (Gramophone), releases Gratitude, a collection of his original compositions for solo guitar, 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.

1. Tidal Pools (4:59)
2. Ellicottville Rondo (4:15)
3. Gratitude (3:38)
4. Elegy (4:50)
5. December Etudes, I. Resistance is Low (1:42)
6. December Etudes, II. Gavotte en Limbo (3:01)
7. December Etudes, III. One More Blue Daydream (1:30)
8. December Etudes, IV. Telephone Game (1:17)
9. December Etudes, V. Walking to Athens (1:17)
10. December Etudes, VI. Grow Up So Fast (3:26)
11. Home (5:03)
12. Grumble (2:51)
13. BDay6 (2:12)
14. Ethan’s Lullaby (3:29)

A collection of works represent a time of connection, reflection, growth, and love, Jason opens this lushly sculpted work of musical art on the effortlessly engaging Tidal Pools and the serenely beautiful Ellicottville Rondo and then we are gifted the dulcet gossamer of the titular Gratitude and the pleasurable Elegy, before the six-part piece December Etudes is brought forth: which itself begins with the alluring I. Resistance is Low and the pulchritudinous II. Gavotte en Limbo, which are backed by the affecting III. One More Blue Daydream, the graceful IV. Telephone Game, the ornate V. Walking to Athens, rounding out on the divinely toned VI. Grow Up So Fast.

Along next is the simply magnificent, dutifully organic, always elegantly flowing Home and that is in turned followed seamlessly by the drifting waves melodiousness within Grumble, the set coming to a close on the regally decadent BDay6 and the exquisitely opulent Ethan’s Lullaby.

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.

Introducing GRATITUDE - Jason Vieaux [Official Video]

Official Spotify Purchase Link