Santa Barbara Acoustic Series Presents Guitar Virtuosos Pierre Bensusan and Sean McGowan

On Sunday, April 17th at 7:30pm, SB Acoustic Guitar Series will present a live Double Bill performance with French acoustic guitar master Pierre Bensusan, and, renowned American jazz guitarist Sean McGowan at Soho Restaurant & Music Club,1221 State St. #205, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

Winner of the Independent Music Award for his triple live album "Encore", voted Best World Music Guitarist by Guitar Player Magazine reader's Poll, winner of the Rose d'Or at the Montreux Festival for his debut album, Pierre is recognized as one of the greatest guitar players of the 21st century.

Born in Oran, French-Algeria, in 1957, when France was decolonizing its Empire, Pierre Bensusan's family moved to Paris when he was 4. He began formal studies on piano at the age of 7 and at 11 taught himself guitar. Influenced in those early days by the folk revival blooming in Britain, France and North America, Bensusan began first to explore his own diverse musical heritage and then moved to the horizons beyond. He signed his first recording contract at 17, and one year later his first album, "Près de Paris", won the Grand Prix du Disque upon his debut at the Montreux Festival in Switzerland.

Described as "one of the most unique and brilliant acoustic guitar veterans in the world music scene today", Pierre's name became synonymous with contemporary acoustic guitar genius, long before the terms New Age or World Music were invented. He has literally created a style of playing with the ability to make a single guitar sound like an entire band as he brings the audience on a mesmerizing musical journey. And yet, Bensusan is more than what any musician or music lover expects from a guitarist. He is a composer as well as a bilingual and original and improvisational vocalist, with his own scat technique.

Immortalized by the tune "Bensusan" written in tribute by the late Michael Hedges, and referenced as an important inspiration to many other great musicians, Pierre Bensusan is a one-of-a-kind artist whose music transcends genre and time, with an uninhibited sense of musical freedom and expression, a sense of something both playful and serious, otherworldly yet right here right now. His "manner" of playing defies classification - crossing world, classical, jazz, traditional, folk, pop and more. None can be isolated as simply "World Music", "Celtic", "Arabic" or "French"; rather, they represent Pierre's genuine vocabulary and the best part of our world in its current state, a world sharing itself. Not to be missed!
More at: http://www.pierrebensusan.com

Sean is a fingerstyle jazz guitarist who combines many diverse musical influences with unconventional techniques to create a broad palette of textures within his compositions and arrangements for solo guitar. He is considered by his professional peers as one of the finest jazz guitarists in the world.

His first recording River Coffee won the Best Independent Release of the Year Award (2002) from Acoustic Guitar magazine and music from the recording has been published in Japan's Acoustic Guitar magazine and Mel Bay's Master Anthology of Fingerstyle Guitar, Vol. 3 (2005). His subsequent recordings Indigo (2008) and Sphere: the Music ofThelonious Monk (2011) offer compelling portraits of classic jazz standards performed on solo electric archtop guitar. Sphere was named one of Acoustic Guitar magazine's "Essential Albums of 2011", and Sean was recently featured on the cover of Fingerstyle 360 magazine (Summer 2012). His most recent solo guitar recordings include Thanksgiving & Christmas Tidings (2014) a collection of seasonal hymns and carols arranged for acoustic guitar, and My Fair Lady (2015) a collection of songs from Lerner & Loewe's masterpiece.

As a soloist, Sean has performed at several festivals including the Novi Sad International Jazz Festival in Serbia, the Healdsburg Guitar Festival in Napa Valley, Copper Mountain Guitar Town, the La Conner Guitar Festival, the Chet Atkins CAAS Convention, and the Artisan Guitar Show with Jimmy Bruno and Brent Mason. He has also collaborated with several dance and improv companies, as well as with jazz and acoustic musicians throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

Sean is an avid arts educator and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Colorado Denver. He earned a DMA in Guitar Performance from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and has conducted workshops at colleges and guitar organizations throughout the country. He has also presented and performed at the Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans, the International Symposium for the Performing Arts Medicine Association in Aspen, CO, and numerous College Music Society national and regional conferences.

Sean is a strong advocate for injury prevention and health education for musicians, and his workshops incorporate a holistic approach to playing. He is also a contributing editor and educational advisor for Acoustic Guitar magazine. He is the author of Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Solos (Hal Leonard) and the String Letter book/video instructional methods The Acoustic Jazz Guitarist, Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Essentials, and Holiday Songs for Fingerstyle Guitar. Sean has also produced eight courses for True Fire, covering the topics of fingerstyle jazz, improvisation, and comping (available at TrueFire.com). More at: https://seanmcgowanguitar.com

For more information visit https://www.sohosb.com/events/sb-acoustic-presents-sean-mcgowan-pierre-bensusan or phone 805-962-7776.

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