Christopher Mallett

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, the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the 92nd Street Y in New York, the Guitar Foundation of America Convention in Indianapolis, the New York Guitar Society, the Austin Guitar Society and the Cleveland Guitar Society. He has toured China with Duo Noire, and Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia with DuoSF, his duo with guitarist Robert Miller.

His 2023 Naxos album, Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements, reached No. 14 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical chart and was named a Critics’ Choice by the American Record Guide. The recording brings to light the music of Justin Holland, the nineteenth-century African American classical guitarist and civil rights activist. Mallett has also recorded Holland’s music on period instruments for the Austin Marie Guitar Collection.

His work with Duo Noire has been called “truly pathbreaking” by AllMusic, and the duo’s 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 more than a dozen composers, including Clarice Assad, Gity Razaz, Gabriella Smith, Courtney Bryan, Javier Farías, Ray Lustig and Mary Kouyoumdjian.

Mallett has been on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz since 2016, where he is a Continuing Lecturer in classical guitar. 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 Guitar Foundation of America’s Board of Trustees. He is co-founder and co-owner of the California Conservatory of Music, where nearly 80 teachers serve pre-college students at three Bay Area locations. In 2019 he co-founded the education platform Practice Space, and he is co-founder of the Peninsula Guitar Series.

A panel selected Mallett to re-record the Suzuki Guitar School Volume 1 album, released by Alfred Music in 2026 with guitarist Adam Kossler.

His students have received top prizes in international guitar competitions, including the GFA Junior and Senior Youth divisions, the James Stroud Competition, the Columbus Guitar Symposium, Boston GuitarFest, Domaine Forget and YoungArts. Several have been invited to perform on NPR’s From the Top and Tiny Desk series.

Mallett has appeared on the cover of Soundboard and has been featured in Classical Guitar Magazine, the American Suzuki Journal and Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Les Productions d’Oz has published his arrangements in the GFA Spotlight Series. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Stephen Aron.