Concertist, teacher, composer, arranger, organiser, artistic and musical director... Anyone wishing to embrace the prodigious diversity of mandolinist Vincent Beer-Demander's activities runs the risk of inevitable vertigo.

In fact, the ferocious eclecticism of his artistic collaborations explodes and multiplies the image of an instrument that has long been stuck in outdated folklore. In his hands, the little lute finds itself caught up in a game of mirrors, revealing unexpected facets, a scintillating diffraction of possibilities: from Vladimir Cosma to Régis Campo, from André Minvielle to Richard Galliano, the galaxy explored is constantly expanding, with Vincent Beer-Demander refusing to impose a limit on his insatiable and constantly renewed curiosity.

In this joyful, perfectly assumed bulimia, we find the intact trace of childhood emotions, the echo of revelations that decide a life: the meeting with Francis Morello, his first teacher who taught him the rudiments, in Toulouse, in the music school that, as a wise humanist, he created to bring to life the ideals of popular education. The first shock - a concussion, even - at the power and sincerity of Freddy Mercury, the Queen singer whose career was meteoric and tragic.

Music would be a way of being in the world, of standing up to it, of saying his piece. As a result, everything gave way to him, not least his hitherto intensive sporting activities, which gave him a taste for effort and a fighting spirit. With Homeric energy, Vincent Beer-Demander devoured the entire repertoire and honed his technique with Florentino Calvo. The master opened the doors to his class at the École Nationale d'Argenteuil, France's leading mandolin school, while at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, Alberto Ponce guided him to the prestigious concert diploma that had never before been awarded to a mandolinist.

Those who met the young musician sensed the urgency of a vocation to which everything was subject. From then on, life accelerated and intensified: the first prizes piled up - seven in four years - the taste for the stage was confirmed, and the stature of the concert performer imposed itself with the tours that followed, punctuated by commissions and creations, and collaborations of all kinds. In his twenty-year career, Vincent Beer-Demander has organised countless decisive events, both in France and abroad, to give his instrument a future. Now based in Marseilles, like his old mentor from Toulouse, he has set up a popular academy in the suburbs, as well as a class for higher education at the Marseilles Conservatoire and the Royal Conservatoire of Liège, with a view to ensuring that the repertoire he has created is passed on and that the practice of the mandolin, profoundly renewed, takes root in musical life.