PIERRE BENSUSAN (F)

Azwan

This is what our friend Pierre wrote for us in the summer of 2021: "Playing in concert is always a great emotion and after 19 months of abstinence, returning to the stage - and above all to that of the FolkClub - will be a great party for me. 2020 and part of 2021 will go down in history for everything we have been through, each and all together. We hope to be able to treasure all the lessons that this tragic and rich experience has taught us! I will play songs by Azwan [his latest album, released in autumn 2021 ed.] And old songs, but also brand new songs, written during the lock-downs. I can not wait to see you again!" (Pierre Bensusan)
Then unfortunately Pierre had to compromise with the difficult and painful convalescence of the ugly disease fought and defeated with tenacity during the year, which however made it impossible for him to perform live for a few months. Already in the spring of 2022, however, Pierre had recovered all his enamel, so much so that he embarked on a long and exciting tour in the States, where he was triumphantly welcomed! So with the autumn, here is the possibility for us to recover one of the top concerts of the past season and its acoustic guitar seminar. Happiness!!
Long considered one of the best acoustic guitarists in the world, he is one of the few contemporary French musicians who enjoy a global fame, built in thirty and more years of tenacious experimentation, rigorous study of technique, prestigious international collaborations, technological innovation, thousands of concerts around the world and many publications of videos and guitar methods. If world music is what pays homage to the spirit of a group of human beings through particular rhythms, traditional instruments and harmonic colors, we can certainly consider the Franco-Algerian guitarist, singer and composer Pierre Bensusan one of the most eloquent and varied world musicians of our time. .
Born in 1957 in Oran (Algeria) while France was dismantling its colonial empire, he moved to Paris with his family at the age of four. He begins regular piano studies at the age of seven and at eleven he is self-taught on the guitar. Influenced in the early stages of the flowering of folk revival in England, France and North America, Bensusan first explores his own particular musical heritage, then moves on to further horizons. At the age of seventeen he signed his first record deal and a year later his first album, Pres de Paris, won the Grand Prix du Disque as Europe's Best Folk Record on his debut at the Montreux Swiss festival. Described by the L.A. Times as ...one of the most extraordinary and brilliant acoustic guitar experts on the current world music scene..., in 2008 Pierre was voted Best Guitarist in the World in World Music by the readers of the prestigious American magazine Guitar Player. His name becomes synonymous with the guitar genius of contemporary acoustics, even before terminologies such as New Age, New Acoustic or World Music were coined. He has the ability to make a single guitar play like an entire band, accompanying the audience on an extraordinary musical journey. And yet, Bensusan is much more than any musician or music lover can expect from a guitarist. He is a composer and an excellent vocal improviser: he combines whistling and resonant low notes with what is his particular scat technique. In his work there is at the same time a sense of seriousness and playfulness, an incomparable feeling of freedom in his compositions and improvisations. His own playing defies classifications, crossing world, classical, jazz, traditional, folk and more. No element can be isolated as simply Brazilian, Arabic or French; rather they represent the elements of a fusion of different cultures in ways we have never experienced. Pierre affirms that his music has Sephardic-Anglo-Ibero-Algerian-Moroccan-Alsatian roots, well illustrating the melodic intertwining that he weaves in his compositions and that emerges in his many published albums. For critics and journalists it is a perfectly successful interweaving of genres and influences, an intimate hymn, deeply original, even if all its various facets are recognizable in it, full of emotion and passion, technically dizzying but always transparent. Pierre was honored with the Grand Prix at the Independent Music Award USA in the Live Performance category for his triple album Encore, presented at FolkClub in 2014. Since his 1974 performance at the American Center in Paris, Bensusan has sold half a million album and held more than 4,000 concerts on stages around the world, as a soloist but also through numerous collaborations. Pierre Bensusan is one of those great musicians who never stopped. On stage, the Oranese without borders plays an intimate and orchestral hymn, a solo crossing on a guitar subjugated by natural elements: sound molecules and touches of fingertips on an ebony fingerboard with open tuning, with a dizzying and transparent technique , under the fingers of an adventurous pilgrim.
Listening to Pierre Bensusan is a regenerating experience. In addition to the extraordinary touch, the notes and melodies directly recall the softer side of human nature. (Steve Vai)
I can count on the fingers of one hand the guitarists who have really fascinated me and Pierre is one of them. (Tommy Emmanuel)
It gives me the chills, has the same talents of refinement, accessibility and joyfulness. Even in its complexity, Pierre's music only needs ears to enjoy listening to it. (Leo Kottke)
His music is delicate and complex, somehow familiar, a truly unique voice capable of taking you into entirely new musical universes. (John Renbourn)
This musician is fantastic… he won me over. (David Crosby)
Pierre is an extraordinary guitarist, a superb voice, a musician of the heart, one of our great composers. (Jacques Higelin)
First in Italy, in 1991 Franco Lucà made Pierre debut in Turin. In 2008 Pierre was at the Teatro Regio among the great artists who paid tribute to the 20 years of the FolkClub and to Franco. His last, sensational, concert in our cave was in 2016. We, who know Pierre's value well, rejoice like children with every return of him.
At FolkClub Pierre presents his new album Azwan and his new book Pierre Bensusan Guitar Collection.
Welcome back Pierre! … And with this, at the FolkClub they are 14 times !!