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Bio
Piano, violin, melodica & composition.
Jean-Claude Guerre started playing the piano very young, and the violin a little later.
At the age of 12, he entered the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, where he was one of the youngest medalists: specialized music theory, harmony, counterpoint.
To have been so precocious, he sends everything to shambles at 18, and lives multiple professional experiences.
But the music keeps coming back, like a passage from loneliness to joy, music that takes months to mature, only to spring up for a few minutes, then to flee sovereignly. Music finally won. From then on, he developed his own language, tinged with jazz, cradled in classical and traversed by improvisations.
Artistic Director of the Musical Company Lézards Dorés , Jean-Claude Guerre creates many shows where his musical compositions meet other artistic disciplines: cinema, puppetry, dance, storytelling, magic, painting…
In 2005, he founded the Festival En Grangeons la Musique, in rural areas in le Bugey (01), for which he proves to be an inventive programmer.
CHRONIC
He is one of those so-called “prodigies”.
Piano at 6 years old: so far, nothing but very normal. Violin at 10: it gets complicated, these are the two instruments that require the most work time.
Marguerite Chattenet, student of the great pianist and pedagogue Marguerite Long, identifies her dispositions. Not content with educating him on the piano, she directed him to the National Conservatory of Music in Paris.
Entered at the age of 12 in a Specialized Solfège class, of which he was to be one of the youngest medalists (Jacqueline Lequien's course), he tackled writing classes the following year: harmony with Roger Boutry, then counterpoint with Jean- Claudius Henry. Cheerfully crossing the stages by means of a few lodges*, he will be 18 years old at the end of the 2nd cycle: the average age is around 25!
Living in a modest town in Auvergne, he makes the round trip by train to Paris every week, while following a schooling by correspondence, in Science : it becomes very complicated.
We will understand that the music is inscribed in his flesh: an education by oneself, in a totally closed circuit, without friends or girlfriends, a huge age difference at the Conservatory and, very young, days of work at the amplitude excessive schedule.
Result of the races: as soon as he obtained his harmony and counterpoint prizes, he sent everything to hell to flee this damn conservatory.
All of this will leave him with a great capacity for work and concentration, in addition to some indelible marks.
There followed, as the saying goes, a long period of professional instability: he worked on construction sites, picked fruit, trained in specialized education and in the management of vacation centers, then thrives ardently in the world of temporary work. Etc, etc, we do not tell you everything.
During this period, the piano remains more or less present, we could speak of cycles: sometimes neglected, sometimes desired, sometimes practiced.
As for the violin, after a disconcerting experience at the Orchester du Grand Opéra de Tours, it was stored in its box for 7 years.
But the music is stubborn: remaining tenuous in the shadows, it returns to manifest itself with insistence. Around his thirties, he reopens the violin box, strums a few strings, and the spell begins again.
In 1 year, he passed his DEM in violin at the National School of Music in Villeurbanne* (which accepted adult students, for which it is eternally thanked).
The Conservatoire National de Région de Lyon* welcomes him with open arms because of these diplomas, and offers him lessons very quickly. In a few months, here he is a teacher of musical training, piano, violin, piano accompaniment, in charge of instrumental ensembles…, both at the CNR and in various schools in the Lyon region. The Miribel music school even offered him a tenure, which he refused (what an idea!)
While hiding* on the violin as they say in the jargon: Lyonnais chamber orchestra (now called Confluences symphony orchestra), orchestra chamber of Grenoble (now Les Musiciens du Louvre), regional orchestra of Auvergne, Synaxis, Jean-Philippe Dubor orchestra and other Sinfonia.
He founded Déraisonnance, a concerting and disconcerting duo, with the great, the very great accordionist Bruno Teruel (music from Eastern Europe, tangos by Astor Piazzolla & creations).
At the same time, he develops a piano activity of creation and accompaniment of singers: Jean-Marc Le Bihan, Fabienne Eustratiades, Denis Lecarme (ex singer of the Pocket Orchestra), Ilyès (Algerian singer whose first concerts in France he organizes and with which he recorded a CD produced by the Center de Musiques Traditionnelles Rhône-Alpes).
He meets musicians and plays in the street, looking for another relationship with the public: sometimes alone, sometimes in duet with the violinist Philippe Arestan (Le Quatuor Vagabond). The street, it does not give a gift, and it is very formative. As the first frosts of winter arrive, the 2 companions take refuge in the pubs of the famous Croix Rousse in Lyon. Thus was born the Itinérance group.
In 1998, he cast off: finished teaching, finished the symphony orchestra, long live creation and congratulations to the status of intermittent in the show!
The dawning century will see him venture down the paths of the solo with "Intimate errance", a solitary odyssey for piano and violin.
Important stage: it is after his 1st solo concert composed solely of his creations that he will be able to say to himself: “the circle is complete”. What a long road for this reconciliation with music…
Then will come "Music for Buster", a concert film on 3 short films by Buster Keaton accompanied live on the piano
"Octave et son Domisil'adoré", funny and poetic show for a puppet and a pianist Concert'eau , alliance of Eaudacieux music and tales on the theme of Water.
Arboésie, Land of the Ancestors, for dance and piano…
Without forgetting artistic projects in music schools and in schools, primary schools or vocational high schools.
For the panorama to be complete, he still had to create the En Grangeons la Musique festival : something done in 2005, and the result of a meeting between people from the city and people from the vineyard, between a group of musicians : Itinérance and a team of Bugey winegrowers . Memorable moment that took place in a barn in Montagnieu , and the start of a new adventure that now takes place every year in 22 towns in southern Ain, during the 3 days of the Pentecost weekend. Even since 2014, the amplitude has increased: 9 days, from the weekend of Ascension to the weekend of Pentecost, a great musical bridge, in short!
* Setting up: confinement of the subject in a space of a few m2, without any contact with the outside, for the realization of a musical composition on a given theme. Usual duration: from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
* Appellation from the 20th century. It is now a CRD, conservatory with departmental influence
* Here again, a name that has gone out of fashion. We are now talking about CRR, conservatory with regional influence.
* Cachetonner: is said of the musician who runs the cachet, going from orchestra to orchestra to make his contribution as an instrumentalist. A fee corresponds to a rehearsal or a concert.
