HOW IT ALL STARTED

Born to a family where music and musical culture took up a lot of room, I have been influenced by a cultural mix from Brittany, Sicily and Great-Britain ranging from traditional Breton music —one of my uncles was Champion of Brittany of sonneurs in duo— to British classics. But I was mostly keen on writing. I wrote my first poems and lyrics in secondary school and joined a band in the early 90s while in high-school as lyricist, (left-handed) guitar player and additional singer.

 

Then came the Blue Accursed experience, a band who would play my songs for a dozen years. Influenced by major British pop bands, we developed our own personal and original identity. Flanked by the bass player and the pianist while exposing my music to an audience at concerts, I built up a rich experience during this period. I never harboured the ambition to become a guitar hero nor a great voice, so that my musical practice consistently drove me back to composing.

 

Writing, yet again, with one of my texts, the Bean-Sídhe, selected for a collection of amateur poetry in the United States: Letters from the Soul, an anthology of poetry, Library of Congress, 2002.

 

 Multi-instrumentalist (I play the guitar, flute, tin-whistle, bombarde, bass, percussion,...) I also spent a while training in Breton music with the Kavadenn cultural association and Kerlenn Pondi’s pen-soner (i.e. lead musician and conductor of a bagad). I spent another two years with a band covering soul music songs in the early 2000s and then started composing solo.

 

I met  Claire Mareuil in 2007. She is a musician with a classical background, a clarinetist and singer who is also keen on writing. Our collaboration resulted in the recording of Demo ’07.

 

Over 200 creations (songs, music, lyrics) my world spans from uncluttered acoustic songs to elaborate pop-rock by way of instrumentals with varied sounds, sometimes more classical, sometimes more hybrid, but always seeking a genuine and perfect emotion.

 

The path to walk is endless for, and that’s a certainty, the most beautiful music will always be the one which is yet to compose.

 

G.G.P.