BIOGRAPHY
"Passion is guiding my everyday steps. Good or bad, rain or shine, this is a choice that is gradually allowing me to become the man I always should have been".
Pépé
French born musician, Serge “Pépé” Le Goueff spent his formative years polishing his skills through the ranks of the French Conservatoire de Brest. He graduated in 1985 and went on to pursue his musical career in a Paris. Having studied the saxophone classical repertoire for nearly a decade, it became apparent that performance opportunities of such esoteric repertoire were indeed too scarce to satisfy Serge’s ambitions to be a performer. Nonetheless, in addition to performing in France extensively, he also performed in Belgium, Germany and Japan. He began exploring Jazz music in France and was invited on occasions to play with an established big band “Jazzogene”. It is with this big band that he played in his first jazz Festival (Festival of Vernon) as well as played as supporting act for Dizzy Gillespie in Paris.
In the early 1990’s, Serge migrated to Australia and was offered a position at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where he studied Jazz performance for 4 years. His French heritage earned him the nickname “Pépé” which he still uses today.
He graduated from WAPPA and his performance ambitions were fulfilled with a very busy performance schedule. As he joined the Perth Jazz Orchestra, he performed with the likes of James Morisson, Dave Weckl, Mickey Tucker, and John Hoffman to name a few. He has performed in Jazz Festivals both in France and in Australia. He was honoured to play the lead alto saxophone chair during the Glen Miller Big Band tour when they performed at Burswood in Perth. He has toured in Australia with the likes of Gene Pitney, and The Will Upson Big Band.
Based in Perth, Pépé became known for his ability to “fit in” and as a result has performed with numerous bands such as “Fling”, “The Celtic Tigers”, “CJ and the T Horns”, “Bondi Express”, “One for All big band”, “Blue Shaddy”, “Barefeet Sojourns”, “Pretty Fly”, "Midnight Soul", "Soul Purpoise"to name a few.
All along, his passion for education continued to grow and he undertook post graduate studies at the University of Western Australia in the field of Jazz improvisation.
In 2012, Pépé moved down south to live in the little town of Dunsborough where he began mingling with local artists. In 2015, Serge was invited to perform at The Jazz By The Bay Festival, and has since been an omnipresent part of the South West local music scene. His life is shared between his passion for painting and performing music. His ambition is to make as many people happy through his passion for arts (be it visual art or music) as humanly possible.
Following sold out performances of his one man show "A saxophone Journey", Serge is now gearing up to take the show on tour around Australia and South East Asia.
Serge performs on all saxophones as well as plays flute, clarinet and sings.