Campus Directory

Division Arts Division

Department/College/Unit Music Department

Title Guitar Lecturer

Affiliation Faculty

Faculty Type Lecturer

Areas of Expertise Contemporary Music

Primary Office Location Music Center
277

Mail Stop Music Center

Biography, Education and Training

Christopher Mallett is an American classical guitarist and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Soundboard Magazine has described him as "Virtuosic," and he was dubbed a "trailblazer" by the St. Louis Dispatch.

His performances have taken him to some of America's finest concert halls. Guitar societies, and festivals, including the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Florida, The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the 92nd St. Y in New York, the Guitar Foundation of America's Convention (GFA) in Indianapolis, the New York Guitar Society, the Austin Guitar Society, The Cleveland Guitar Society, and more. He also performed throughout Asia, with performances in Beijing, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Mallett's work with Duo Noire has been called "truly pathbreaking" by All music, and their most recent album, Night Triptych, was named one of the best classical albums in 2018 by both All Music, 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 more. 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 on period instruments.

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 institutions such as 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, the Boston GuitarFest, Domain Forget, Young Arts, and more. Several of his students have been invited to perform on NPR's From the Top and Tiny Desk 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.

Teaching Interests

Emphasis on musicality, technique, tone production and performance practice. Working with students to help make them critical thinkers by not only correcting their mistakes, but by helping change the way they think about music and technique. Encourage students to perform as often as possible to help with performance anxiety and prepare students to become successful performers, educators and artists.