After 50 years of music, Pierre Bensusan ‘still at the beginning’ of his journey

As critically acclaimed guitarist Pierre Bensusan celebrates his storied 50-year career, he continues to live in a “performance by performance” state of mind.

While recalling the past five decades, the word “surprised” is what came to Bensusan’s mind. Although Bensusan has known the guitar would be his full-fledged lifestyle since he was just 12 years old, this version of himself never pictured the years of musical globetrotting that were to come. In fact, he’s never been one to think too much about what the passing of time holds.

“I don’t project myself in the future, I just write music,” Bensusan said. “I work to be able to learn it, to express it, to grow as a guitar player, to grow as a musician. Tomorrow belongs to the future, and I don’t know the future, so I don’t even think about it.”

The French-Algerian has also been surprised by how nonlinear his relationship with musicianship remains. Even after all this time, pieces still take painstaking hours of chasing perfection and the proper levels of dynamic expression that Bensusan is always seeking.

“I still feel that I am still at the beginning of my journey, and it has been 50 years,” Bensusan said. “It’s ironic, almost.”

On one hand, Bensusan is able to acknowledge being in “a good place” musically. He is capable of sharing stories via the guitar, expressing the small yet powerful details within a piece, holding an audience and performing around the world. Many would (and do) take these components and speak of a virtuoso – even if Bensusan is inclined to disagree.

“What people feel and the way I feel are two different things,” Bensusan said with a laugh.

On the other hand, Bensusan is not only constantly working at his craft, he simply refuses to take each day for granted. He recognizes that music and even this entire thing we call existence offers endless possibilities to be explored, noting heavy relation to ancient Greek philosophy consisting of, “the more I learn, the more I realize that I am so ignorant of all the things that I don’t know.”

Bensusan believes that it takes work, every single day, to chase this limitless potential

“I work hard, and it’s not even that I work, it’s that this is my life,” Bensusan said. “It’s not like I’m discouraged, I’m in fact inspired to work more and more.”

Even when the kind of audience that will be present for him Saturday at the Listening Room at Hamilton Studio isn’t in front of Bensusan, they are constantly on his mind. Whether alone, with his wife or even with his dogs, Bensusan practices with sheer intentionality knowing that the end result must be more than fit for a crowd.

In doing this, he asks himself many questions: Is the audience bored? Is this piece too dense? Is it too long or too short? Is it too busy or perhaps too spacey? And so forth.

“When I’m alone, I think about that audience all the time, they are just on the other side of that tunnel,” Bensusan said. “One day, when I’m playing, they will hear it, they will listen to it and they will think whatever they want.”