Roland Dyens at GSI (1947 Robert Bouchet)

Today is Roland Dyens’ birthday, so it seemed like a perfect time to publish some video we have of him playing a concert at GSI with a very historic guitar. The guitar is a 1947 Robert Bouchet, the second guitar Bouchet ever built and the first he ever sold (he kept the first guitar, as he had made it for himself). This guitar can rightly be said to have launched the French school of luthiery, which would go on to include such figures as Daniel Friederich, Dominique Field and now the current generation of young French luthiers like Jean-Noel Rohe and Bertrand Ligier.

In the first video GSI president David Collett gives us a brief history of the guitar (including a great photo, taken the year Dyens was born, of the guitar being played by Friederich while sitting next to Joseph Reinhardt, Django’s brother), then Dyens plays Sor’s Le Calme. In the second video Dyen’s plays his arrangement of Django Reinhardt’s Nuages, and in the third he plays his new arrangement of Piazzolla’s Oblivion.

Huge thanks to the guys at AEA (RibbonMics.com) for lending us their N22 and N8 microphones for this concert!