Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux is featured on the forthcoming album House of Cards Symphony featuring music composed and conducted by Jeff Beal, available from BIS Records worldwide on August 24. The album features music inspired by the Netflix production House of Cards and Beal’s score, which won two Emmy Awards.

Jason Vieaux is the guitar soloist in Beal’s Six Sixteen for guitar and chamber orchestra; the album also includes the House of Cards Symphony; House of Cards Fantasy and Flute Concerto, both featuring flutist Sharon Bezaly; and Canticle for string orchestra featuring violin soloist Henrik Jon Petersen; all with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.

Jeff Beal wrote Six Sixteen for Jason Vieaux in 2015, commissioned by Chamber Music Lexington that also presented the world premiere of the original chamber version. Six Sixteen refers to the number of strings used in this work (six for the guitar, and four times each of the string instruments).

Jason Vieaux says, “Jeff is such an amazing musician, and I am honored to be performing his guitar concerto – not just here on record, but in live performance as well.” Vieaux will next perform Six Sixteen on October 20 with the Heartland Festival Orchestra, in Peoria, Illinois.

Beal writes of the piece, “Since the image of a waking dream, or a sense of memory, feels like part of the narrative in this music, ‘Six Sixteen’ might also refer to a time of day (6:16am), a room number, an address, a special date...Although the piece follows a traditional three-movement form of fast-slow-fast, the first movement begins with a slow, thoughtful prelude. This prelude was not necessarily intended to be part of the final composition but, as the music evolved, I grew to like it more and more; it seemed to set the stage for reflection, and for the drama to follow. This simple opening sequence of ‘memory’ chords is reprised at the end of the first movement. The second and third movements form a study in contrasts, the second being peaceful and hypnotic, while the third is more about agitation and effort. The nightmare is one of the most intense type of dreams and seems like a fitting finale.”

Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, “among the elite of today's classical guitarists” (Gramophone), is the guitarist that goes beyond the classical. NPR describes Vieaux as, “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” Among his extensive discography is the 2015 Grammy Award-winning album for best classical instrumental solo, Play, from which the track “Zapateado” was also chosen as one of NPR’s “50 Favorite Songs of 2014 (So Far)”.

Vieaux has earned a reputation for putting his expressiveness and virtuosity at the service of a remarkably wide range of music, and his schedule of performing, teaching, and recording commitments is distinguished throughout the United States and abroad. He has performed as concerto soloist with more than 100 orchestras, including Cleveland, Toronto, Houston, San Diego, Buffalo, Auckland Philharmonia, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Recent highlights include performances at Caramoor Festival as Artist-in-Residence, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Curtis Presents, Phillips Collection, National Gallery of Art, Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York's 92Y, and Ravinia Festival.

Recent and upcoming chamber music collaborators include the Escher Quartet; Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke; violinists Anne Akiko Meyers, Kristin Lee, and Tessa Lark; acclaimed harpist Yolanda Kondonassis; and accordion/bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro. Vieaux’s passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Jonathan Leshnoff, Avner Dorman, Jeff Beal, Dan Visconti, David Ludwig, Vivian Fung, José Luis Merlin, and more. Jason recently premiered Visconti’s “Living Language” Guitar Concerto with the California Symphony and recorded Leshnoff’s Guitar Concerto live with the Nashville Symphony for a release on Naxos Records. 

Aside from his Grammy-winning 2015 solo release Play, Jason Vieaux’s previous albums include Infusion (Azica) with accordionist/bandoneonist Julien Labro; Ginastera’s Guitar Sonata, on Ginastera: One Hundred (Oberlin Music) produced by harpist Yolanda Kondonassis; Together (Azica), a duo album with Kondonassis; a recording of Astor Piazzolla’s music with Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra; Bach: Works for Lute, Vol. 1; Images of Metheny; and Sevilla: The Music of Isaac Albeniz. Vieaux was the first classical musician to be featured on NPR’s popular “Tiny Desk” series.

In 2012, the Jason Vieaux School of Classical Guitar was launched with ArtistWorks Inc., an unprecedented technological interface that provides one-on-one online study with Vieaux for guitar students around the world. In 2011, he co-founded the guitar department at the Curtis Institute of Music, and in 2015 was invited to inaugurate the guitar program at the Eastern Music Festival. Vieaux has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1997, heading the guitar department since 2001.

Vieaux is affiliated with Philadelphia’s Astral Artists. In 1992 he was awarded the prestigious GFA International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event’s youngest winner ever. He is also honored with a Naumburg Foundation top prize, a Cleveland Institute of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, and a Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant. Jason Vieaux is represented by Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd. and plays a 2013 Gernot Wagner guitar with Augustine strings. For more information, visit www.jasonvieaux.com.

Five-time Emmy award winning composer Jeff Beal has received 15 Emmy nominations for his original score for the critically acclaimed Netflix television series House of Cards. Beal is known for his diverse musical approach to film and television scoring, having written award-winning scores for the films Pollock (2000), Appaloosa (2008), Wilde Salome (2011), and Blackfish (2013), and for television including the shows Monk (2002), Rome (2005), Carnivale (2003), The Company (2007), and House of Cards (2014). 

Now based in Los Angeles, Jeff Beal pursued a career as a jazz recording artist and composer in New York and then San Francisco, after studying composition with Christopher Rouse at the Eastman School of Music. He has recorded numerous recordings for Island, Mercury, and Koch Jazz record labels as a performer (trumpet) and composer. With musical roots as a jazz trumpeter and recording artist, Beal’s compositions are infused with a deep understanding of improvisation, rhythm, and spontaneity. Beal’s work has been performed and recorded by world-renowned soloists, ensembles, and orchestras, including clarinetists Eddie Daniels and Chicago Symphony principal Larry Combs, the American Jazz Philharmonic, and the symphonies of St. Louis, Rochester, Pacific, Frankfurt, Munich, and Detroit.

Five-time Emmy award winning composer Jeff Beal has received 15 Emmy nominations for his original score for the critically acclaimed Netflix television series House of Cards. Beal is known for his diverse musical approach to film and television scoring, having written award-winning scores for the films Pollock (2000), Appaloosa (2008), Wilde Salome (2011), and Blackfish (2013), and for television including the shows Monk (2002), Rome (2005), Carnivale (2003), The Company (2007), and House of Cards (2014). 

Now based in Los Angeles, Jeff Beal pursued a career as a jazz recording artist and composer in New York and then San Francisco, after studying composition with Christopher Rouse at the Eastman School of Music. He has recorded numerous recordings for Island, Mercury, and Koch Jazz record labels as a performer (trumpet) and composer. With musical roots as a jazz trumpeter and recording artist, Beal’s compositions are infused with a deep understanding of improvisation, rhythm, and spontaneity. Beal’s work has been performed and recorded by world-renowned soloists, ensembles, and orchestras, including clarinetists Eddie Daniels and Chicago Symphony principal Larry Combs, the American Jazz Philharmonic, and the symphonies of St. Louis, Rochester, Pacific, Frankfurt, Munich, and Detroit.