Boris Dujmovic

Boris Dujmovic was born in 1962 in Valenciennes ,a cold and rainy town in the north of France. At the age of four,thanks to his grandpa, Boris started to play the "bratsch"a sort of croatian mandolin .The family atmosphere was filled by music.At any moment of the day, there was always someone around singing wonderful melodies from the Adriatic sea. Sitting on grandpa's knees, he spent long pleasurable hours learning the bases of this fretted instrument.

At the age of four,thanks to his grandpa, Boris started to play the "bratsch"a sort of croatian mandolin .The family atmosphere was filled by music.At any moment of the day, there was always someone around singing wonderful melodies from the Adriatic sea.

Sitting on grandpa's knees, he spent long pleasurable hours learning the bases of this fretted instrument.

At the tender age of 6,his dad gave him the most precious gift:a 3/4 scale steel guitar found in a marketplace in Belgium .Unfortunately this little guitar was very difficult to play and the first bar chords were painful.But since then,he had a friend forever and played as much as possible ,most of the time on the first floor landing ,because there was a good reverb...

When he was in secondary school, he met an Italian house painter named Alberto,a former professional folk singer.Alberto taught him about the Shadows,The Beatles and many new chords.

The long musical quest started with an old amp on his moped,overnight rehearsals in caves,playing local clubs at the weekends.

Being the youngest guitar player in a ballroom band,he learned a lot from his fellow musicians,discovering new styles, copying and stealing any new lick he could.

At the age of 14,he met the great french fingerpicker Marcel Dadi during a showcase in a music shop.

Since then a new world opened to him,and he started to listen to countrymusic, bluegrass, jazz and blues,learning from Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed,Doc Watson ...

Eager to learn more, Boris joined the Town Music Academy but he gave up some months later because "here we don't play picking style guitar, and you'll have to change your steel strings for nylon ones..."Having failed at his A level exams due to an excess of practicing, he continued his progression playing in jazz fusion , bluegrass and country bands,simultaneously developping his technical skills for fingerstyle.

In 2005,at a guitar festival ,he met for the first time the Australian guitar maestro Tommy Emmanuel cgp and since that very moment he knew it was really possible to find an ideal balance between technical skill, the beauty of the melodies, and the pleasure of entertaining an audience, alone on stage with just an ordinary guitar.

His first CD "The french touch" (this name was found after Tommy heard him play the very first melodies) is full of up tempo killer boom chic stuff,from lyrical ballads,romantic musical journeys, to bluegrass root medleys.

Among other venues,Boris opened for Richard Smith at the Douai Guitar Festival in march,won the Raalte Open Strings Festival (the Netherlands),opening the next day for Tommy Emmanuel cgp, and recently opened for Antonio Forcione at the Dunkerque Guitar Picking Festival in May.