Aaron Larget-Caplan

Guitarist and composer Aaron Larget-Caplan brings his virtuosity and groundbreaking programming to Salem State University. Special guest, Salem-based poet Richard Hoffman. Explore American History with the sounds of the guitar of Aaron Larget-Caplan; from patriotic melodies to roadtrips with Paul Simon and lullabies by Van Halen. Join acclaimed Boston guitarist and composer Aaron Larget-Caplan for the release concert of Guitar America 250, a sweeping musical tribute to 250 years of American creativity and courage. This one-hour program traces the nation’s evolving voice through music of revolutionaries, abolitionists, suffragists, immigrants, and rock legends. The concert features works by iconic composers and songwriters including Leonard Bernstein, Irving Berlin, Julia Ward Howe, John Stafford Smith, J. Rosamond Johnson, Paul Simon, and Eddie Van Halen, alongside Boston-based composer Ian Wiese. FREE, reserved seating recommended “Aaron Larget-Caplan is a riveting artist”, writes the Washington Post, and the Boston Musical Intelligencer says he performs with “astounding technical proficiency and artistic delicacy”. Mr. Larget-Caplan is a composer, international recording and touring guitarist, award winning curator, producer, and educator. Twelve critically acclaimed album, recent ones include Guitar America 250 (2026), Spanish Gems (2024), Spanish Candy (2023), his own compositions on honey cadence (2022), an all-Bach album God’s Time (2022), three volumes for his New Lullaby Project: New Lullaby (2010), Nights Transfigured (2020), Hushed (2021), and the first guitar album sanctioned by the John Caget Trust: John. Cage. Guitar. (2018). His albums have earned over 13 million streams since 2021.Larget-Caplan has received numerous awards for his trailblazing work in music including from the Société Académique Arts-Sciences-Lettres of Paris, France, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the professional music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon. A lover of new, he has premiered over 120 solo and chamber compositions by over 100 composers from 13 countries. He has written and arranged over 85 compositions including for guitar and choir, and solos for piano and guitar. Edition Peters publishes his Cage and Alan Hovhaness arrangements, and the American Composers Alliance his original compositions and the award-winning New Lullaby anthologies. Larget-Caplan is the director of the Spanish music and dance ensemble ¡Con Fuego!, the New Lullaby Project, and the performance and educational endeavor Now Musique (Fractured Atlas). On faculty at the New England Conservatory, past appointments include the Boston Conservatory at Berklee School of Music and the University of Massachusetts Boston. His teachers and mentors include David Leisner, Eliot Fisk, Dmitry Goryachev, and pianists Seymour Bernstein and Stephen Drury. Born in Oklahoma, raised in Colorado, Aaron is based in Boston and likes espresso.