The Program

Bach:  Lute Suite in E Minor, BWV 996
Britten:  Nocturnal after John Howland, Op. 70
Britten:  I will give my love an apple
Britten:  Sailor-boy
Britten:  Master Kilby
Britten:  The Soldier and the Sailor
Britten:  Bonny at Morn
Britten:  The Shooting of his Dear
Dowland:  Fantasy in E Major
Dowland:  Can She Excuse My Wrongs
Dowland:  Flow My Tears
Dowland:  Come Again
Visconti:  Devil's Strum

The Artists

One of the “youngest stars of the guitar world” (New York Times, 2010), Jason Vieaux is a musician noted for virtuosic and stirring performances, imaginative programming, and uncommon communicative gifts.  His collaborations with the Escher Quartet, flutist Gary Schocker, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and bandoneon/accordion virtuoso Julien Labro continue to display Vieaux’s broad range of musical interests.  Recent career highlights include solo performances at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Chautauqua Festival, and a return to Music@Menlo. Vieaux has 11 commercially successful CDs to his credit, with more to come via his contract with Azica Records.  A new CD of Astor Piazzolla’s music with bandoneonist Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra will be released in 2011, and a new solo disc will arrive early 2012.  His Bach; Works for Lute, Vol.1 hit #13 on Billboard’s Classical Chart a week after its release, and received rave reviews by Gramophone, The Absolute Sound, and Soundboard. In 2011, Jason Vieaux co-founded The Curtis Institute of Music Guitar Department with guitarist David Starobin.  He has been Head of the Guitar Department of the Cleveland Institute of Music since 2001, and is also affiliated with Philadelphia’s Astral Artists. For more information on Jason Vieaux, visit www.jasonvieaux.com.

From State College, PA, soprano Sarah Shafer studies in the opera program at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joan Patenaude-Yarnell. She graduated from the voice program at Curtis with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2010. Shafer's engagements during the 2011-12 season included her professional operatic debut in the role of Barbarina and the cover role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival, and soprano soloist in Mahler's Fourth Symphony with Curtis On Tour in China and South Korea. She will make her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia singing Papagena in Die Zauberflöte in 2013. Shafer recently attended the Mozart and Handel residency as part of the Académie européenne de musique in Aix-en-Provence, France. She spent the past two summers as a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival, where she worked with Benita Valente, Martin Isepp and Richard Goode. She and Mr. Goode appear in recital with PCMS in December 2012.