My breakthrough onstage experience with professional musicians!

Music has always been a part of my life. When I was young I used to take piano lessons but over the last thirty years my guitar has become the instrument I really feel in harmony with. I particularly love the poetic music from French songwriters including Ferrat, Brassens, Moustaki, Reggiani, Le Forestier, Cabrel my preferred, and many others - the list would be too long.

Together with my family we have done our utmost to create around us a world of music: my daughter has been playing piano for ten years and also takes singing lessons, my son is a drummer and loves it! In 2014, our love for music led us to found the association « Vivre en musique » which means « Living with music » in order to support the development of musical creativity and culture around Lacanau. Up to now, together with musicians of all ages, we have performed in retirement homes and for benefit concerts. This experience and the joy on my colleagues’ faces prove how wonderful it is to share our passion, to play for others and to see their appreciation in their eyes.

Yet I had never been on stage with a real music group. Meeting Michel Larroche and Déa L’Hoëst has made this dream come true. Michel had once been a classical singer; Déa is an amateur singer and cello-player. Both of them pursued the project of creating a French song event in order to offer the public a collection of those wonderful poetic songs from French songwriters that are nowadays too rarely heard although they are still very popular. I immediately engaged myself as guitar player for the project of preparing a Nostalgia Concert Tour.

This is how I saw my dreams come true, to play in a group along with other musicians and even top-quality professionals. Just imagine how great it felt to be playing on stage between the top-class pianist, classical and jazz singer Marie-Pierre Desjoyaux and the double bass player Richard Messyasz. How proud and happy I was to receive encouragement and advice from Claude Barrière who enchanted us with saxophone jazz variations on the theme of Yves Montand’s Autumn Leaves (« Les feuilles mortes »), knowing that Claude is himself not only an outstanding jazzman but also leading bassoonist at the National Orchestra of Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon! All of them kindly supported me although I was just a simple amateur guitar player on their side. In fact, we are not all of us, in this group, professional musicians, some of us including me are just « musicos », passionate amateur musicians!

It was my first real concert on stage as part of an informal and open group of musicians - the Musicos fadas which means « crazy players » - bound for a long voyage to realize our concert projects. Of course we all have our strong and weak points, our imperfections, but we have offered our public filling the municipal hall of Saint Germain d’Esteuil, a memorable evening of music and emotion that I saw in their eyes!

For me, this was a truly exceptional moment in my life.

2018 André Hérédia (Lacanau), translation: Déa L’Hoëst