About
APLR Presents: Pierre Bensusan

Wednesday, September 16th, 2026

AyurPrana Listening Room - 312 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806

Doors 6PM || Event 7PM

Pierre Bensusan

“It’s like the guitar has been given free rein to play itself!”

French acoustic guitar virtuoso, vocalist, and composer Pierre Bensusan, surnamed “Mister DADGAD,” has taken his unique sound to all corners of the globe.

Winner of the Independent Music Award for his triple live album Encore, voted Best World Music Guitarist by Guitar Player Magazine readers’ poll, and winner of the Rose d’Or at the Montreux Festival for his debut album, Pierre is recognized as one of the greatest guitar players of the 21st century.

When Michael Hedges titled one of his compositions “Bensusan,” you know that the inspiration behind it must be special, and Pierre Bensusan certainly is. Guitarists from Leo Kottke to Larry Coryell, Tuck Andress, Tommy Emmanuel, Mark Knopfler, Andrew York, Andy Timmons, Pat Metheny, and Steve Lukather have sung his praises, and Steve Vai released three Bensusan albums on his label Favored Nations. And it's not just guitarists who are inspired by Pierre's music, as a recent studio collaboration with him on Donny Osmond’s album Start Again demonstrates.

If World Music means the fusion of traditional, contemporary, jazz, classical, and pop music, then Bensusan is one of the most eloquent World Music musicians of our time. A pianist in his beginnings and later self-taught on the guitar, the originality of his style makes him one of today’s greatest guitarists and composers for the instrument. Also called “The Prince of DADGAD,” his story is far from trivial, and it is on stage that this artist has earned his stripes, including the Rose d'Or of the Montreux Festival and being elected Best Guitarist of World Music by the readers of Guitar Player Magazine. His triple album Encore won the Grand Prix at the Independent Music Awards in the Best Live Album category. Since his first performances in 1974 in France, the guitarist has sold half a million albums and given thousands of concerts around the globe, both solo and through numerous collaborations.

Pierre Bensusan is an adventurer of unusual lands. His music is an intimate and orchestral hymn, a solo crossing on a multi-shell Lowden guitar subjected to the natural elements, with sound molecules and finger pulp on an ebony fingerboard for open tuning—a unique and transparent technique under the fingers of an adventurous pilgrim.

“For me, so total is his mastery of the solo instrument, his dazzling harmony, his many innovations, and his deft command of counterpoint, the jazz idiom, folk expression, and all genres between and beyond, an entire history unfolds as Pierre Bensusan plays. But really, the emotional depth—and this is where true artistry often likes to live—of many of his songs and compositions is all, well, breathtaking. With only his steel-string acoustic guitar—and sometimes his rich, affecting voice—Mr. Bensusan can disassemble your heart and hand it back to you restored and renewed as he did to mine tonight. A true giant.”

James Volpe Rotondi - Editor at Guitar Player Magazine

“I've seen Alfred Brendel, Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Lynn Harrell, Nureyev, Placido Domingo, etc., etc., perform magnificently. Tonight, in Atlanta, in the last half of the second set, Pierre Bensusan went a quantum beyond the warm, compelling, appealing, extremely accomplished guitarist whose recordings and performances I've eagerly sought for over 30 years. He's achieved the sublime—decades of technique, creativity, intuition, passion, and intensity crashed together—a man transformed, singular, stunning. I have so seldom had the privilege and pure animal joy of experiencing this caliber of artistry.” Rain Crow - A fan

BIOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS

• Born in October 1957 in Oran (Algeria)

• Moved to metropolitan France, in the western suburbs of Paris, in 1962

• Studied piano from age 6 with Madame Rosso

• Taught himself guitar at age 11

• Left school at 16

• Recorded his first album, Près de Paris, at 17 and won the Grand Prix/Rose d’Or at the Montreux Festival in Switzerland

• Has released 16 albums, the most recent being Azwan

• A leading figure in the world of open-tuned guitar music

• Has given approximately 4,000 concerts worldwide and sold more than 500,000 albums since 1975

• Has lived in Oran, Suresnes, Nice, Paris, and spent part of every year in the United States; currently resides in the French countryside, about an hour from Paris

COLLABORATIONS: Donny Osmond, Jacques Higelin, Yoko Kanno & Cowboy Bebop, Didier Malherbe (Gong), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Bobby Thomas Jr. (Weather Report), Nana Vasconcelos, International Guitar Night (USA), Bill Keith, Larry Coryell, Gingua, Andrew York, Gene Parsons (The Byrds), and many more.

All ages