Jean-David Lupien – FIRST PRIZE with Special Mention, Composition
Jean-David Lupien is a guitarist and composer from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Having begun studying the instrument at the age of 12, he completed studies in guitar performance and earned his bachelor’s (2005) and master’s (2008) degrees from the Université de Montréal. Passionate about flamenco guitar, he specialized in this discipline with Ricardo Mendeville and Paco Peña during a stay at the Rotterdam Conservatory (Netherlands) in 2007.
In the past 15 years, Jean-David Lupien has performed more than 100 times in the Montreal area and throughout the province of Quebec, including in several of the city’s most important venues. These performances are primarily with a flamenco ensemble, but also with a guitar-harp duo (classical Spanish repertoire), jazz-funk groups (compositions), and solo (classical repertoire and original works, including one for prepared guitar).
In his cycle of works for solo guitar, “Poèmes énigmatiques”, published at d’Oz/Dobermann-Yppan editions, he offers a mysterious universe where the guitar’s most complex harmonic and rhythmic possibilities are exploited through a modern, modal, sometimes atonal, yet accessible language. Here are some of the elements that form its fabric: modes of limited transposition, flamenco, Brazilian harmonies, African polyrhythms, cinematic atmospheres, and more.