Jason Vieaux Offers a Tribute to Prince; Readies Visconti Premiere

Leave it to the reliably eclectic Jason Vieaux to be the first major classical guitarist to post a video honoring the memory of Prince, who died last week. Here, Jason serves up a medley that contains bits of “The Beautiful Ones,” “Take Me With U,” “Computer Blue,” “Raspberry Beret,” and “Purple Rain.”

In other Jason Vieaux news, the guitarist will perform the world premiere of composer Dan Visconti’s Living Language on May 6 at the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center in Yountville, California, and on May 8 at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California. According to Visconti, this new piece “will explore an inversion of the typical concerto format, where the orchestra normally exposes material with the soloist elaborating and commenting; to the contrary, my piece will explore the orchestra as a kind of echo chamber that passes around gestures that all originate from the guitar soloist’s melodic material”


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Vieaux already has another Visconti piece in his repertoire: The bluesy solo number “Devil’s Strum,” written in 2010.

Also, if you missed our exclusive Classical Guitar Sessions performance by Vieaux from earlier this year, you can check it out here.