The Nice Guitar Circle
Les Barricades Mystérieuses, F.Couperin (live, 1,34Mo)
Blue circulation (live)
Rectus de L'Art de la Fugue, J.S. Bach (live, 1,29Mo)
The Nice guitar Circle is born in march 1995, one year after playing, for the first time in France, Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint with 14 guitarists, ordered by the MANCA festival in Nice. With this aim in view, I had gathered all the musicians I knew, even some I did not, with of course those of Philharmonie. We rehearsed 4 months relentlessly, the piece being very difficult, particularly for those who had never practice this kind of guitar interplay, and except Philharmonie, it was everyone ! The performance went relatively smoothly, considering the stake and the ensemble line up. Unfortunately, the recording was of very poor quality and could not be used.

The group was composed in a large part with my best students, therefore, the experience being as enriching for them than for me, I decided to create a permanent ensemble, almost exclusively made of students this time, without members of Philharmonie. In spite of a rather big skill differences, everybody get something out of it. We began of course by Electric Counterpoint, long and difficult piece but very formative. We also worked on an improvised exercise proposed by Robert Fripp during the Guitar Craft seminars, Circulations : notes travel from a guitar to another. Circulations are still now part of the repertoire of the N.G.C.

Talking of that, it is important for me to make it clear that the N.G.C. is not a French incarnation of the Guitar Craft. Circulations apart, we do not work on the same principles, and do not use the New Standard Tuning created by Robert Fripp and exclusive tuning of G.C. seminars.
From 1995 to 2001, we have been playing titles by : Steve Reich : Electric Counterpoint, François Couperin : Les Barricades Mystérieuses, Led Zeppelin : Kashmir, Terry Riley : In C, The Persuaders, soundtrack of the film , Fred Frith : Nenad, Guy Reyes : Alcayata, composed for the Circle, two pieces of my composition, Souffles Terrestres and Regard Circulaire après Eblouissement for 12 guitars and 12 strings, Brian Eno ; Sombres Reptiles, Jean Sébastien Bach : Rectus n°1 of The Art of Fugue and Vivaldi : The Winter from the Four Seasons. All these pieces has been performed on stage, but almost never recorded.

The members of the Nice Guitar Circle from 1995 to 2001 (those who played in concerts) has been : Robert Balma, Bernard Beccaria, Greg Behar, Benjamin Blanc, Renaud Charles, Laurent Chemama, Frédéric Del Bellino, Jean Marc Fauchier, Cécile Ferrari, Diane Gauffridy, Laurent Herdt, Laurent Mouton, Stéphane Pagliai, Pierre Petenian, Keven Rameau, Guy Reyes, Benjamien Riem, Ismaël Robert, Julien Vecchié and Bruno Vercelli.
It was nevertheless an essential condition that this group contained at least eight people. In 2001, we found ourselves seven. No way to recruit, I choose people according to non-musical criterions, some kind of spirit... So the N.G.C. stopped, a bit like Philharmonie did.
Two years later, after moving to Paris, I noticed that amongst the few student I kept in Nice, for whom I come back every 10 days, five of them could be able to be involved in a new N.G.C project. So I got in touch with three of the ancient members and the group join again in November 2003, but this time virtually without me as I can rehearse only twice monthly but I continue to conduct and control. The first piece at the repertoire is the Art of Fugue, far less impressive than Electric Counterpoint for debut, soon followed by a Kashmir new version, then Les Barricades Mystérieuses. The rest will surely be different from the ancient repertoire.

The third line up of the group is : Jean-Marie Alfonsi, Greg Behar, Jean Noël Brua, Alexandre Chouillet, Frédéric Del Bellino, Florence Deroy, Diane Gauffridy, Thomas Guiraud and Marie-Pierre Médecin.