MALLETT Christopher

Christopher Mallett is an American classical guitarist and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Described as "virtuosic" by Soundboard Magazine and dubbed a "trailblazer" by the St. Louis Dispatch, Mallett's performances have earned him recognition on both national and international stages.
He has performed in some of America's finest concert venues, guitar societies, and festivals, including the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the 92nd St. Y in New York, the Guitar Foundation of America's Convention (GFA) in Indianapolis, and with organizations such as the New York Guitar Society, the Austin Guitar Society, and the Cleveland Guitar Society. Internationally, Mallett has performed across Asia, with concerts in Beijing, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
As a member of the groundbreaking Duo Noire, Mallett's work has been called "truly pathbreaking" by AllMusic. Their album Night Triptych was named one of the best classical albums of 2018 by both AllMusic and I Care If You Listen. Mallett has actively commissioned new works by over a dozen composers, including Clarice Assad, Gity Razaz, Gabriella Smith, Courtney Bryan, Javier Farias, Ray Lustig, and Mary Kouyoumdjian. Recently, he recorded videos featuring the music of 19th-century African American classical guitarist and civil rights activist Justin Holland on period instruments for the Austin Marie Guitar Collection.
Mallett's most recent album, Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements, released on Naxos, charted on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts and received Critics' Choice by the American Record Guide.
Since 2016, Mallett has served as a lecturer of classical guitar studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has presented lectures at prestigious institutions, including The Juilliard School, the New York Guitar Society, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the South Bay Guitar Society, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 2019, he joined the Guitar Foundation of America’s Board of Trustees.
Mallett is also the co-founder and co-director of the California Conservatory of Music, which has two locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, and co-founder of the Peninsula Guitar Series. His students have earned top prizes in numerous international competitions, including the GFA's Junior and Senior youth divisions, the James Stroud Competition, the Columbus Guitar Symposium, the Boston GuitarFest, Domain Forget, and YoungArts. Many have performed on NPR’s From the Top and Tiny Desk Concert series.
Mallett has been featured on the cover of Soundboard Magazine and has been profiled in Classical Guitar Magazine, the American Suzuki Journal, and Acoustic Guitar Magazine. His editions are published by Les Productions D’Oz.