PIERRE BENSUSAN
Voted by Guitar Player magazine readers as Best World Music Guitarist, Bensusan’s music is contemplative, wistful, sublime and prodigiously performed with inspiration rooted in nature. Bensusan is a storyteller, using expressive and lyrical acoustic guitar parlance and ethereal vocalization or French lyrics to allure, transfix and transport. Primarily instrumental music in which the guitar is conceived as an orchestra, delivering melody, bass, chords and counterpoint in the same space.
Born in Algeria, growing up in Paris, Bensusan has taught himself to play guitar after four years of piano training, inked his first record deal when he was 17, winning the Rose d’Or at the Montreux Festival for his 1975 debut album, “Près de Paris.” More recently, he won an Independent Music Award in 2014 for “Encore”, a triple live record. He’s regarded as one of the greatest acoustic guitar players of the 21st century.