ArtwordList

Sunday, February 21 at Mooredale Concerts
CLASSICAL GUITARIST JASON VIEAUX & MEZZO WALLIS GIUNTA PERFORM SPANISH MUSIC & MORE

Jason Vieaux, one of the world’s most versatile and most successful young classical guitarists plays Spanish and Cuban music and Bach at Mooredale Concerts, Sunday, February 21, 2010, 3:15 p.m. at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park Crescent (south of the ROM, Museum subway).  Joining him is stunning young Canadian mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta, whose voice has been described as “satin purity.”
Tickets, $25; $20 seniors and students, are available by calling 416-922-3714 or visiting www.mooredaleconcerts.com.

The artists also give a one-hour, interactive “Music & Truffles” concert for children 5-15 at 1:15 p.m. the same day and place.  Tickets are $10 and available from Mooredale Concerts.  Mike Peterson is the colorful emcee, “Papageno”.

Mooredale Concerts’ Artistic Director Anton Kuerti advises music lovers to get their tickets early:  “This concert will appeal to so many audiences, including opera and classical guitar aficionados, not to mention our Hispanic population.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer counts Jason Vieaux “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists.” His 2009 recording, Bach: Works for Lute, Volume I, reached No. 13 on the Billboard charts.  The Ottawa Citizen described Wallis Giunta’s voice as “utterly beautiful…..The satin purity of her voice served the music to perfection.”  Together, they perform two vibrant Spanish song cycles – Canciones Españolas Antiguas (Ancient Spanish Songs), arranged by famed poet Federico Garcia Lorca, and the Siete Canciones Populares Españolas (Seven Popular Spanish Songs) by Manuel de Falla.

On his own, Vieaux plays Bach’s Lute Suite in G minor, BWV 995 (after the Cello Suite in C minor), movements from the Suite española, Op. 47 by Isaac Albeniz, and El Decameron Negro by Cuban composer Leo Brouwer.

JASON VIEAUX, CLASSICAL GUITAR – www.jasonvieaux.com

Reviewing Vieaux’s 2009 recording, Bach: Volume I Works for Lute, Gramophone magazine said: “Vieaux’s ability to see the big architectural picture and to render the counterpoint with utmost clarity makes his account ….. a special occasion…. Vieaux draws warm sonorities from the instrument, colouring with discreet use of vibrato and joining phrases as if they were in fact natural moments in a fascinating conversation.”

Jason Vieaux maintains an active schedule of appearances around the U.S. and abroad, including solo recitals in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, St. Louis, Dallas and other major centres. He has also toured Europe, Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand.  His latest recording, Bach: Volume I Works for Lute, reached number 13 on the Billboard charts. His Laureate Series Guitar Recital on the Naxos label has sold over 50,000 copies.  He was highly praised for his 2005 CD, Images of Metheny, featuring his original transcriptions of the music of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.

Vieaux began guitar studies at age eight in Buffalo, and continued at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is the youngest first prize winner in the history of the GFA International Guitar Competition, and is also a Naumburg Foundation prizewinner.  Vieaux resides in Cleveland, where he is head of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s guitar department.

WALLIS GIUNTA, MEZZO-SOPRANO – www.wallis.giunta.ca
Hailed by critics as a “talented and artistically mature” performer with a “voice of satin purity” that is “strong, supple and…utterly beautiful”, mezzo Wallis Giunta has begun a diverse and vibrant musical career. At age 23, she has already performed numerous operatic roles including Hermia in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sally in Barber’s A Hand of Bridge, and roles in operas by Haydn and Rossini.  In 2008-09, she created roles in two new Canadian operas – the title role in Pandora’s Locker by Dean Burry, and The King’s Mistress in R. Murray Schafer’s The Children’s Crusade.

She has performed multiple times for the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, and the Ottawa Musical Arts Club, and with many orchestras and choirs.  In 2009, she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and won the Royal Conservatory Orchestra Concerto Competition and Tom Thomas Award

This season, Giunta joined the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio.   She will be seen in the COC’s upcoming production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, and will sing Cherubino in Opera Atelier’s performance of another Mozart opera, Le Nozze di Figaro.