Alexandre Lagoya (29 June 1929 – 24 August 1999) was a French classical guitarist and composer. His early career included boxing and guitar, and as he cites on the sleeve of a 1981 Columbia album, his parents hoped he would outgrow his predilection for both.

Lagoya was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a Greek father and an Italian mother. By 1955, when he married the French guitarist Ida Presti, his career had already begun. On the sleeve of his 1981 record with Columbia, Lagoya pays deep tribute to Presti and admits that after her premature death he was unable to play for years. He returned to the guitar as a teacher, tutoring among other famous guitarists the Canadian virtuoso Liona Boyd (who claims in her autobiography that she was also his lover). In the early 1980s, aged 52, he burst back on the international scene with a record for Columbia and an international tour.

Lagoya played a variety of works for guitar, performing concerts and recording albums, often collaborating with Presti and also with other musicians. Lagoya was also a successful teacher. He taught at the Conservatoire de Paris and, in Canada, and developed a new method of hand positioning which he believed helped people learn to play the guitar better. He also added the use of the little finger to plucking and claimed to have invented a method for maximizing the sound coming from the classical guitar.

Concerning the right hand, Alexandre Lagoya preferred the technique of plucking from the right side of the nail, and he believed it gave a more powerful sound.

A number of composers wrote works for Lagoya and the Presti-Lagoya Duo.

Source: Article "Alexandre Lagoya" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Alexandre Lagoya est un guitariste français né le 29 juin 1929 à Alexandrie (Égypte) et mort le 24 août 1999 à Paris.

Alexandre Lagoya naît de parents grec et italien installés en Égypte. Il commence la pratique de la guitare à l’âge de 7 ans et donne son premier concert à 13 ans: il devient connu au Moyen-Orient. À 20 ans, il se rend à Paris pour parfaire ses connaissances musicales; il rencontre la guitariste Ida Presti qu'il épouse en 1952 et avec laquelle il forme le duo Presti-Lagoya qui va devenir l'un des plus grands duos de guitare du XXe siècle, de 1950 jusqu’à la mort prématurée d'Ida Presti en 1967.

Sa carrière s’interrompt alors. Cinq ans plus tard, il entame une intense carrière en solo, avec de nombreux concerts et enregistrements.

Alexandre Lagoya est le fondateur de la classe de guitare à la Schola Cantorum puis au Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris où il enseigne entre 1969 et 1994 et, à ce titre, forme de nombreux guitaristes tels que: Laurent Blanquart, Yvon Demillac, Emmanuel Rossfelder, Nelly Decamp, Olivier Chassain, Aaron Skitri, Pascal Parnet Feugueur, Simon Schembri.

Source: Article "Alexandre Lagoya" de Wikipédia en français, soumis à la licence CC-BY-SA 3.0.