Music: guitarist Thibault Cauvin dazzled readers of “Sud Ouest”

Find the video of the mini-concert at the heart of the editorial staff on our Facebook page.

These days, he publishes “A cords and heart”. An autobiographical book where confidences and revelations weave the portrait of this extraordinary prodigy. “This editorial adventure began exactly a year ago, when the journalist François Delétraz proposed it to me, explains…

Find the video of the mini-concert at the heart of the editorial staff on our Facebook page.

These days, he publishes “A cords and heart”. An autobiographical book where confidences and revelations weave the portrait of this extraordinary prodigy. “This editorial adventure began exactly a year ago, when journalist François Delétraz suggested it to me,” he explains. At first I refused: at 37, I didn’t feel legitimate. But he called me back five times and I ended up playing along. Every ten days, I sat down on his sofa like you would go to the shrink and I told my story by answering his questions. It was disturbing, sometimes upsetting, but I found the exercise fascinating. My goal was to try to understand, through my story, my relationship to the stage and to the public, my quest for the moment of trance, almost shamanic, that music can produce. »

Almost born with a guitar in his hands, Thibault went through a “strange but wonderful” childhood. Under the rule of his father Philippe Cauvin (guitarist and composer in the groups Absinthe, Papoose, Uppsala…), he imposed an iron discipline very early on to reach the highest level of virtuosity. “As a teenager, I wanted to conquer the world with my guitar. I trained up to six hours a day. I hid in the boiler room of the Camille-Jullian high school in Bordeaux to play during recess. Sometimes, at my parents’ house in Bruges, when I fell asleep from exhaustion on my guitar, my fingers kept moving on the neck…”

“Communion with the public is my absolute quest. I who have devoted everything to the guitar, I even try to have it forgotten, and that only emotion remains »

High-level sports practices, and a bulimia of recognition: at 20, Thibault Cauvin had already won 36 prizes in international competitions. Trained at the Conservatory in Bordeaux, then in Paris, he compares the universe of these competitions to Wimbledon or Roland-Garros. “I always found the same guitarists there. In a climate of emulation that stimulated us […]. Only the guitar counted in my life. If I hadn’t reaped a hundredfold the seeds I sowed as a teenager, I might have soured on myself, because I didn’t know anything about vacations with friends at the campsite or evenings with friends. The parties, I experienced them later and more intensely, in Paris, Tokyo or New York. »

To all questions from readers, Thibault Cauvin answered without dodging any, for more than an hour. To Jean-Pierre, who was asking what advice he would give to a beginner, he recommended to “play it down. Yes, learning music theory is tedious. But if you stick to it for half an hour a day for two months, it definitely works. And we must never forget the purpose: to play for people. Even in front of three friends or two grandparents, interpreting four pieces is already performing in public, giving a concert. Conservatory students don’t play often enough, apart from end-of-year competitions. »

To Nicole, who wanted to know if he preferred intimate rooms to prestigious auditoriums, he the musician with 1,500 concerts (including some at Carnegie Hall in New York or the Tchaikovsky auditorium in Moscow), he confided that he only had an obsession: “To feel the symbiosis with the audience. Communion with the public is my absolute quest. I who have devoted everything to the guitar, I even try to forget it, and only emotion remains. And then we have the feeling of approaching something eternal. »

This thrill, Thibault Cauvin gave it to live by delivering a mini-concert on the editorial footbridge during a “Live@SudOuest”. Three distinct titles: an “estudio sencillos” by Cuban Leo Brouwer, the breathtaking “Rocktypicovin” composed by his father (“I asked him for the most difficult piece in the world”), and a variation around the “Forbidden Games” by Narciso Yepes, composed with his brother Jordan. A moment of pure grace, to relive on our website.

In meetings and on TV7

Thibault Cauvin will be on Tuesday February 15 at 6 p.m. at the Librairie Mollat ​​in Bordeaux (Ausone station) for a meeting around his book “À Cordes et à cœur”, co-signed with François Delétraz (ed. Du Rocher, 176 p., 17, €90).
He will also be a guest on TV7’s “Backstage” program, presented by Benjamin Bardel. To see from Friday on channel 30 of the boxes, and on sudouest.fr.