Masterclass with Christopher Mallett, California Conservatory of Music
March 2, 2025, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose
Free registration required for the performer slots. Admission to audit the class is free. Please note that a parent or guardian must accompany performers under the age of 18 at all times, including during warm-up and the class itself.
Directions
The South Bay Guitar Society is pleased to present a masterclass with Christopher Mallett, co-director of the California Conservatory of Music. Players will perform individually and receive feedback from Mallett in this educational event.
Mallett is an American classical guitarist and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Soundboard Magazine has described him as "Virtuosic," while the St. Louis Dispatch dubbed him a "trailblazer."
Mallett has performed at some of the country's finest concert halls, guitar societies, and festivals, including the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Fla., the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the 92nd St. Y in New York, the annual convention of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) in Indianapolis, the New York Guitar Society, the Austin Guitar Society, and the Cleveland Guitar Society, among others. He also performed throughout Asia Beijing, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Mallett's ensemble Duo Noire has been called "truly pathbreaking" by AllMusic, and the duo's most recent album Night Triptych was named one of the best classical albums of 2018 by both AllMusic and I Care If You Listen. Mallett has commissioned new works by over a dozen composers including Clarice Assad, Gity Razaz, Gabriella Smith, Courtney Bryan, Javier Farias, Ray Lustig, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and others. Using period instruments, Mallett recently recorded several videos of the music of 19th century African-American classical guitarist and civil rights activist Justin Holland for the Austin Marie Guitar Collection.
Mallett has been on the faculty of the University of California Santa Cruz since 2016 as a lecturer of classical guitar studies. He has given lectures at the Juilliard School, the New York Guitar Society, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the South Bay Guitar Society, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 2019 he joined the GFA's board of trustees. Mallett is the co-founder and co-director of the California Conservatory of Music with two locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and co-founder of the Peninsula Guitar Series.
His students have received top prizes in international guitar competitions, including the GFA's Junior and Senior youth divisions, the James Stroud Competition, the Columbus Guitar Symposium, Boston GuitarFest, Domain Forget, YoungArts National Competition, and more. Several of his students have been invited to perform on National Public Radio's music program From the Top and its Tiny Desk video concert series.
Mallett has been featured on the cover of Soundboard magazine and in Classical Guitar magazine, the American Suzuki Journal, and Acoustic Guitar magazine. Les Productions d'Oz recently published his arrangements as part of the GFA Spotlight Series.
Website: https://www.christophermallett.com/
