Acclaimed international recording and touring guitarist and composer Aaron Larget-Caplan is an exciting and innovative leader in classical music. Noted as a “master guitarist” by Fanfare and for his “astounding technical proficiency and artistic delicacy” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer, Larget-Caplan has performed throughout the USA Europe, Russia, and Taiwan, including El Palacio de Linares in Madrid, Spain, Sheremetev Palace in Russia, and Palazzo del Te & Ducale in Mantova, Italy.
At 16 he made his debut at the Tabor Opera House and has since premiered over 120 solo and chamber compositions, soloed with orchestras, directed concert series, created commissioning endeavors, curated and published three anthologies of scores, arranged over 35 solo and chamber works, and brought classical music into schools and communities. A gifted performer and speaker, he is sought for his deft programming of new and standard repertoire, while connecting with audiences with a Bernstein-esque ease. A winner of multiple awards, including from the Société Académique Arts-Sciences-Lettres of Paris, France for his trailblazing work in music, he was Musician in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, and the first guitairst to be invited for Artist Residency at the John Cage Trust at Bard College.
Mr. Larget-Caplan has 11 critically acclaimed solo albums and over 10 million streams on Tiger Turn and Stone Records (UK): Spanish Gems (2024), Spanish Candy (2023) God’s Time: Music of J.S. Bach on Guitar (2022) honey cadence (2022), Drifting (2021), A Guitar Holiday (2021), Nights Transfigured (2020), John. Cage. Guitar. (2018), The Legend of Hagoromo (2015), New Lullaby (2010), Tracing a wheel on water (2006), and he is featured multiple others albums as a soloist and chamber music for record labels Albany, Navona, and the American Composers Alliance. The recordings have received critical acclaim from Audiophile, Fanfare, American Record Guide, Guitar Magazine and many more with such response as “stunningly played” (Fanfare), “eclectic and endlessly rewarding release” (Classical Guitar), “A Significant Recording” (Classical Guitar UK), “Master Guitarist” (Fanfare).
Larget-Caplan is the founder of numerous commissioning and performance endeavors, including the New Lullaby Project, which bridges the chasm of fear audiences towards contemporary music and composers to writing for guitar, for who’s afraid of a lullaby?! Since 2007 Aaron has premiered 77 new lullabies by 72 different composers from eleven countries. In January 2021, Mr. Larget-Caplan in partnership with the American Composers Alliance began publishing the award winning multi-volume anthology collection ofscores of the New Lullaby Project: volume 1 ‘Nights Transfigured’ and volume 2 ‘Hushed’ features 16. Three albums have been recorded: New Lullaby, Nights Transfigured, and Drifting.
Mr. Larget-Caplan’s first album of his own compositions, honey cadence, was released in April 2022 on Tiger Turn, featuring six meditative solos written in December 2021 and January 2022. A score collection is published by the American Comopsers Alliance. The album has become Aaron’s most popular album with over 6 million streams.
His groundbreaking arrangements three volume series John Cage Guitar are exclusively published by Edition Peters and are the first guitar arrangements to be officially sanctioned by the John Cage Trust, and include violin-guitar, guitar solo, and prepared guitar duo. The American Record Guide called the transcription of Cage’s ‘Bacchanale’ for two prepared guitar “marvelous”. The Guitar Foundation of America “strongly advocates these [Cage] compositions to be performed by young guitarists before they start working on any other contemporary composers.” Edition Peters released Aaron’s arrangement of ‘Mystic Flute’ by Alan Hovhaness in April 2024.
Larget-Caplan also performs his own arrangements of Bach, Scarlatti, Rodrigo, and many Spanish composers. Larget-Caplan recently received exclusive permission from the estate of Reynaldo Hahn and Édition Musicales Alphonse Leduc to perform his own arrangements of Hahn’s “Mélodies” for voice and guitar. Upcoming publications include music of Bach, Cage, Hahn, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Pascual Marquina.
Mr. Larget-Caplan is currently collaborating with composer Vineet Shende of Bowdoin College for his multi-movement choir & guitar work Pravasa (migration in Sanskrit) and his 12 Carnatic Preludes, After J.S. Bach, a re-imagining of Bach preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier as if Bach were from South India (Carnatic music). Each prelude is paired with an Aaron’s arrangement of Bach’s keyboard prelude.
Mr. Larget-Caplan is the founder of the ensemble ¡Con Fuego! (With Fire!), a passionate cross-fertilization of flamenco dance and Spanish classical music featuring acclaimed dancer La Conja and guest cellists.
Larget-Caplan is the diretor and curator of Now Musique, which explores the new and neglected in the recital format. After a sucessful debut in 2019, it has since held over a dozen performances and received multiple grants. From 2010-2014 Aaron directed Greater Boston House Concerts presenting 23 international artists.
Mr. Larget-Caplan’s published articles include: “Have Guitar, Will Travel – To Russia With Love”, The Triangle of Mu Phi Epsilon, and “Meet the Luthier with Sicilian Builder Franco Marino”, Boston Classical Guitar Society Quarterly. Interviews of Aaron include “Building a career through talent and savvy”, The Triangle, and “On the Trail with Lullaby Hunter, Aaron Larget-Caplan”, Fanfare Magazine where he was noted for his “enthusiasm and virtuosity”. He has given lectures Being an Artist Entrepreneur in the 21st Century, John Cage Guitar, Writing for Guitar, and Creating Commissioning Projects at universities as well as the Guitar Foundation of America, the 21st Century Guitar Conference, New Music Gathering, and for the international music fraternity ΜΦΕ. His John Cage Guitar and Legend of Hagoromo lectures were accepted to the IGRC in 2019 in Hong Kong. Aaron has appeared on numerous radio and television stations across the US including Conducting Conversations, and Classical Guitar Alive, and held online roundtables on Composing for Guitar.
Mr. Larget-Caplan has received awards and grants from the Société Académique Arts–Sciences–Lettres of France, American Composers Forum, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, New England Foundation for the Arts, American Composers Alliance, New England Conservatory, D’Addario Foundation, Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, numerous Local Arts Councils, he was awarded as an I.D. LOTT – Identifying Future Leaders of Today and Tomorrow for his artistic and community work in Dorchester, and he was named an ACME Honoree as a distinguished Artist and Educator by the international music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon. A proponent of live classical music in society and arts in education, he gives enrichment programs and artist residencies alongside formal concerts throughout the country and internationally.
Faculty appointments include the Boston Conservatory at Berklee School of Music and the University of Massachusetts Boston. In 2024, Aaron joined Expanded Education at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He gives artist residencies, masterclasses, workshops and lectures across the country, including in Canada, Italy and Russia, for the Guitar Foundation of America, 21st Century Guitar Conference, the International Music Fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon, and the Banff Centre for the Creative Arts. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory where he studied with David Leisner and Eliot Fisk, and his principal teacher was Dmitry Goryachev. Notable non-guitar coaching includes pianists Seymour Bernstein and Stephen Drury. Larget-Caplan performs on guitars by the French master luthier Olivier Fanton D’Andon and a historic 1957 Manuel Velazquez, and uses Hannabach strings exclusively. Larget-Caplan lives in Boston where he enjoys espresso with his wife, healer and muse, Catherine
