If you needed convincing that F-B. Mâche is a thoroughbred musician, all you would have to do is listen to his "Kemit", a scrupulous notation of a darbouka solo in Upper Nubia. A man with such an ear will end up giving us works that we can admire without reticence, when he has enough confidence in himself to draw the source of his music from it. It was marvellous to hear Jean-Pierre Drouet master his exotic instrument, giving proof, if proof were needed, that Western music, notated and transmissible, has nothing to envy of primitive music, which it understands, encompasses, surpasses and ensures, through its technicality, its dissemination and durability.

								                                    Gérard Zwang (1973)

- I absolutely loved the four highly original pieces in the François-Bernard Mâche concert

                                     Maurice Fleuret  Nouvel Observateur, 21 April 1973

- The presence of François-Bernard Mâche
The young French composer proved himself worthy of the Festival's confidence, reserving a full session for him. ... A relaxed style in which contrast plays a dominant role. The result is a strikingly poetic impression, even in this piece for the Nubian darbouka, a percussion instrument played with dazzling mastery by Jean-Pierre Drouet.

									Albin Jacquier  La Suisse, 21 April 1973

- In La Rochelle, the limelight went mainly to celebrities...In Royan...a concert by François-Bernard Mâche was a triumph, but let's not kid ourselves: in both cases, only a few hundred initiates were present to hear contemporary music.

								Ouest-France 24 April 1973

- On the same day [16 April 1973], three works by François-Bernard Mâche met with superb success: 'Kemit', a transcription of music from Nubia for darbouka to which the percussionist J-P. Drouet has given astonishing new life...

							Xavier Darasse  La dépêche du Midi, 24 April 1973

- Relativity of sounds and noises

F-B. Mâche, who was seeing for the first time a concert entirely devoted to his works, gave Nuit (1966, for magnetic tape), Kemit (1970), a darbouka solo from Nubia, transcribed by the composer ("against a paralysing respect for traditional music, and against its preservation in an aspetised glass case, I wanted to wager that in certain cases, such as this one, they had enough vitality to withstand transplantation into a foreign social setting - the concert - and enough universality that their interest did not lie entirely in their original function. .

					Gilbert-Jean Faccarello  Nouvelles Littéraires 1st May 1973

- ...a broadcast or a recording would greatly simplify and impoverish the work. In the absence of an ad hoc concert hall, it would be impossible to hear Mâche's composition, either his 'Korwar' or his 'Kemit' (the former performed during the Festival by Elisabeth Chojnacka, the latter by Jean-Pierre Drouet). This year's programme therefore presupposed that the performers of these avant-garde essays, which have become precious modern works, could count on these magnetic tapes as active and stimulating partners.

					             Maria Kerenyi   Muszika, June 1973 (Hungary)

- François-Bernard Mâche
A new sound and a new blood

Tuesday was a decisive day in this respect, thanks in particular to the works of François-Bernard Mâche (born in 1935), who brings a new sound and a new blood to contemporary music, through an original search for contact with non-European sound worlds. ...
For example, Kemit, a remarkable transcription of an ancient darbouka solo - an instrument from Nubia - in which Mâche detects echoes of a tradition older than the Muslim tradition: under the fingers of Jean-Pierre Drouet, who today achieves a virtuosity worthy of a pupil of Chemirani, the master of the Persian zarb. However, with its rhythmic cycles, series of sounds, choruses and stretches, this piece is very much in the mainstream of Iranian music.

                                                Jacques Longchampt
    Le Monde, in Festivals en coulisse, Aix-en-Provence n°1, summer 1973

To start with, and to listen to again at the end, the admirable Kemit, which is not a composition as such, but the reconstruction of a darbouka improvisation recorded in Nubia, successfully demonstrating that traditional music is perfectly transposable to our Western context. J.P.Drouet's interpretation is confounding in its virtuosity.

						                         A.A. Scherzo n°42 April 1975

Tuesday's musical programme featured some astonishing works. A magnificent piece for solo darbukka, "Kemit", bright and warm.
			
						                 D.M-A.  Ouest-France 1 February 1996