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# International Guitar Night comes to SM
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/international-guitar-night-comes-to-sm/
- Published: 2004-07-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:44:26.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

Grammy Nominated steel guitarist, composer and producer Pierre Bensusan will perform today at McCabe’s in Santa Monica.

He will feature songs from “An Evening With International Guitar Night Live,” which gathered 14 nylon and steel string acoustic guitar performances from the IGN 2004 Winter Tour, featuring California natives Gore (steel string guitar) and Andrew York (nylon string), Grammy winning Brazilian legend Guinga (nylon) and French Algerian born Pierre Bensusan (steel).

International Guitar Night is more than an annual gathering of the international music community’s most beloved and acclaimed guitarists, IGN is about breaking down artistic and cultural barriers and promoting a joyful spirit of global harmony.

Bensusan hooked up with IGN in 2001 representing, according to Gore, “what we’re all about, trying to cross boundaries and have a varied collaborative spirit.”

Each member contributes to the boundary-breaking musical vibe and chemistry of the current International Guitar Night.

“Bensusan has shown that the steel string guitar can be a forum for a high form of art,” Gore said. “He’s one of the first people in the history of folk to successfully blend world music impulses with the music of his cultural upbringing.”

Born in Oran, French Algeria in 1957, Bensusan’s family moved to Paris when he was 4 years old. He began studies on piano at 7 years old and at 11, he taught himself guitar. Performing folk music while exploring the music of his diverse heritage, he landed his first recording contract at 17 years old and his first album, “Pres de Paris,” won the Grand Prix du Disque upon his debut at the Montreux Festival in Switzerland. Working exclusively in the unusual Dadgad tuning, Bensusan has developed a bittersweet melodic approach that incorporates many musical languages. International tours and numerous innovative recordings (the most recent is 2002’s Anthology) have established him, in the words of pianist George Winston, one of the truly gifted musicians of our time. His latest solo recording, “Intuite,” was released in 2001 by Favored Nations.

Summing up the great appeal of the acoustic guitar based music of the current IGN lineup, Gore said, “Solo guitarists have a way of expressing the vast poetry of life with a unique signature, which you can’t find on other instruments. They tap into a special dialogue of emotions. An ‘Evening With International Guitar Night’ conveys the essence of what I have been trying to accomplish through this unique musical setting. In a very subtle but significant way, Pierre’s production helps us show the positive manifestations of that realized potential. It’s a celebration of how the guitar can facilitate global harmony and contribute peace and healing to a world so in need of it.”

The show starts at 8 p.m. For more information, call (310) 828-4497\. The guitar shop is located at 3101 Pico Blvd. Tickets are $20.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 16, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071604.pdf?ref=smdp.com)