Gabriel Cyr
Guitarist Of The Year
Finalists: Florian Naegeli, Gabriel Cyr, Stig Trip
With our last final bringing three adult electric players into the spotlight and into the footsteps of past winner Guthrie Govan, one could be forgiven if the mood backstage suddenly gave in to that of intense rivalry. Our guest judges Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani and Mark Tremonti had helped give us absolute confidence that these were the three players who deserved to be here.
Germany’s Florian Naegeli was first up. “I was impressed by how lovely the people are, even if it’s a competition,” he told us, “but I think as musicians, and I know the others do it as a full-time job, too, we all sit in the same boat.” The 23-year-old Dresden Jazz Guitar student played all the instruments and sang for the backing track of his creative fusion piece, and it reflects an ambitious musician seeing a role beyond one instrument.
Gabriel Cyr travelled far for the opportunity. The Frenchspeaking 24-year-old Canadian combined three pieces from his work with progressive rock band Universe Effects, with the final segment taken from Resurgence, which features on their newly released second album, Desolation. To say the bar was set high would be an understatement.
Guitar teacher Stig Trip offered a contrasting approach to the other two’s blazing runs in his short but tasteful piece Blue Ocean. With a clean single-coil Strat tone and no backing track in sight, it oozed emotive touch from the Dane’s sensitive fingerstyle and pleased the John Mayer and Gilmour fans in the audience. “It’s been a great experience,” he said him afterwards. “Also, it’s been a lot of fun to see the other finalists, what they play and be inspired by that. The crew here is very helpful, too.”
With Simon McBride joining the editorial judges, the winner soon emerged as Gabriel Cyr. Though the melodicism of his influences Gilbert and Satch was evident, it was the slightly funky leftfield spin that brought to mind Gabriel’s biggest hero, Guthrie Govan. “It’s crazy, it’s like a dream for me,” Gabriel told us after he had been presented with his PRS USA Custom 24 and Ernie Ball endorsement. ”Gabriel’s performance showed what a formidable command of the instrument he has, plus compositions loaded with inventive ideas,” commented Guitarist editor Jamie Dickson.