Cover Image: Ingrid Riollot plays by the shoreline at Hellfire Bay, drawing inspiration from the landscapes of Western Australia while preparing new repertoire. Photo by Dan Paris.

When French classical guitarist Ingrid Riollot first arrived in Esperance, she felt she had stepped into another world. “It was the first place I saw in Australia,” she recalls, “arriving straight from very busy Spain, and it was a striking, beautiful shock. The beaches, the light, the silence – it was like entering a place where nature still reigns with grandeur.”

It was also where she found not only her dream guitar, but her future husband. Visiting Smallman & Sons, the legendary Esperance workshop whose instruments have graced the hands of John Williams and other leading artists, Riollot discovered both the culmination of a childhood dream and the beginning of a new life. The encounter with luthier Damon Smallman led to a personal and creative partnership that now anchors her in one of the most remote corners of the world.

From Burgundy to the Great Southern Ocean

Riollot’s journey to this distant shore began in the small Burgundian village of Charolles, where she grew up surrounded by music and the arts. She began reading and writing music at six – just three weeks after her father’s death. “One day my mother brought home a collection of old instruments,” she says. “Among them was a cithara, but it was the guitar that captured my heart. It brought joy back into my life, filling an absence, offering a way to express emotions beyond words.”

At 11, she left home to study at the Conservatoire of Lyon, trading the quiet rhythms of the countryside for the intensity of the city. There, her bond with the guitar deepened into vocation. “The guitar became my constant companion, guiding me through every step of life,” she says. “It allowed me to meet extraordinary people who shared my passion and who helped shape the musician – and the person – I am today.”

Years later, touring the world as a performer and teacher, she would return to that same sense of discovery – the sense that the guitar was more than an instrument: it was a passport to connection, to other cultures, to other forms of beauty.

The Dream Guitar

Riollot’s connection to Australia began long before she set foot here. As a young guitarist, she had been captivated by a documentary on John Williams, the Australian guitarist whose expressive power and perfect clarity made him an icon of the instrument. “From that moment,” she says, “I dreamed of playing a Smallman guitar.”

That dream became reality in 2015. Touring through Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, she visited the Smallman workshop in Esperance to collect her own instrument. “Meeting Damon and seeing how he continued the family tradition with both innovation and respect for the craft was transformative,” she says. “I found not just the guitar I’d always wanted, but a life I had never imagined.”

For several years, she divided her time between France and Australia, balancing teaching at a French conservatoire with concert tours. A serious mountain biking accident – one that threatened her performing career – prompted a moment of reckoning. “It gave me the clarity and courage to commit fully to a new chapter of my life,” she says. “To live in a place where silence, space, and beauty could nourish my creativity.”

A World Apart

To live and work as an international artist in Esperance is not without its challenges. Travel requires careful logistics; long flights and even longer drives are part of the routine. Yet Riollot sees these difficulties as the necessary price of freedom. “The peace and isolation here are incredibly fertile,” she says. “They allow me to dedicate myself deeply to interpretation and recording. Every performance feels more intentional. Every collaboration feels more meaningful.”

Far from isolating her, Esperance has become a kind of crucible for creative exchange. She collaborates with musicians and composers from across the globe, forging connections that transcend geography. “Living here teaches you to work with artists everywhere,” she explains. “It reminds you that distance can deepen relationships rather than limit them.”

The Legacy of Travel

Travel is a recurring motif in Riollot’s story – both inherited and chosen. Her father and grandfather served in the French Navy; bedtime stories were filled with images of tropical islands, coral seas, and distant ports. “His tales of the ship La Bourdonnais – of Polynesian shells and Cape Horn – were like music,” she remembers. “They gave me my first sense of the world’s vastness and beauty.”

Her new album, Travel Notes, draws on that legacy. It is a collection of musical souvenirs from her life on the road – works by composers from Thailand, France, and beyond, many written for her. “Each piece carries a memory, a connection, a moment,” she says. “Together they form a journey through sound – a musical diary of encounters and places that have marked my life.”

Among these are Duan Pen (Missing Home) by Thai composer Pongpat Pongpradit and Ingrid’s Romance by the French guitarist Jean-Jacques Fimbel. “They are both emotional landmarks,” Riollot says. “In their own ways, they speak of longing and belonging.”

Life on the Road – and at Home

Touring remains central to Riollot’s career. Having left her teaching post in France, she now spends up to seven months a year performing across Europe, Asia, and Australasia. “It sounds exhausting, but in some ways touring is more relaxing than being at home,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t have to worry about shopping, cooking, or driving to school. I can live entirely by my own rhythm, surrounded by music.”

Her family often travels with her: her husband, Damon, presents lectures on Smallman guitar innovation; her daughter, Alice, joins during school holidays, sometimes performing, sometimes photographing. “Having them with me adds a different kind of joy,” Riollot says. “Every tour becomes both a professional and a personal adventure.”

When travel separates them, she finds solace in purpose. “Leaving family is never easy, but each journey brings new energy and inspiration. It helps to remember that the distance has meaning – it enriches what we share when we’re together.”

Collaboration and the Silver Sands Quartet

Though best known as a soloist, Riollot is also a passionate chamber musician. “Solo and ensemble playing are two sides of the same coin,” she says. “One is introspection; the other, dialogue.”

Her ensemble, the Silver Sands Guitar Quartet, emerged from a long-held dream inspired by hearing France’s Quatuor Éclisses. “When I arrived in Western Australia, I shared my vision of a quartet with Jonathan Paget from WAAPA,” she says. “We discovered how the sound of four guitars can create an orchestral richness unlike anything else.”

The quartet’s debut recording, The World in a Single Grain, showcased this potential; a second album, featuring works by Australian and international composers including Marian Budos and Richard Charlton, is due in 2026. “Playing in a quartet is demanding,” Riollot admits. “You surrender a little freedom to gain a collective voice. But that voice can be extraordinary.”

Beyond the Stage

For Riollot, artistic life is an ecosystem of performance, teaching, and creative curation. “I’ve never been able to do only one thing,” she says. “Performing, recording, commissioning, publishing – they all feed each other.”

In recent years, she has become increasingly involved in artistic direction and education. In 2026 she will co-direct the Taranaki Classical Summer School in New Zealand and participate in guitar festivals in Sydney and at West Dean in the UK. “It’s about creating opportunities for others,” she says, “and about keeping the spirit of curiosity alive.”

That same spirit infuses her work with Patrick Bebey, the French-Cameroonian multi-instrumentalist with whom she recorded African Sunrise. “Patrick’s music bridges cultures with such warmth,” Riollot says. “We also pay tribute to his father, the legendary Francis Bebey, whose influence can be felt in everything from contemporary African music to John Williams’s own explorations.” The album also includes John Williams’s Hello Francis and new works by Nigerian guitarist Taiwo Adegoke.

On the Future of Music

Riollot is both realistic and hopeful about the state of classical music. “Few musicians today can survive by performing alone,” she observes. “Teaching remains essential, and digital platforms have yet to provide fair income for artists. Too often, musicians are expected to offer their work for free. It’s unsustainable.”

She speaks passionately about the need to value artistic labour. “No one expects a doctor or a dentist to work without pay,” she says. “Why should musicians? Music is not a hobby – it is a profession, one that demands years of study and sacrifice.”

And yet, she insists, there is room for optimism. “Audiences are more curious than ever. There are new ways to reach people – live, online, through collaboration. What matters is staying creative and connected, honouring tradition while embracing reinvention.”

A French Heart in an Australian Landscape

In Esperance, Riollot finds a balance between solitude and community, between her European roots and her Australian present. “The landscape itself is a form of music,” she says. “The wind, the ocean, the vast skies – there is rhythm and harmony in everything here.”

Next year, she will perform concertos with France’s Ensemble Sinfonia Lumina, including Aeolian Suite by John Christopher Williams and a new concerto by Marian Budos, written especially for her. Closer to home, she is organising the French Week Celebration in Esperance, collaborating with pianist François Daudet and local photographer Dan Paris as part of a cultural exchange between Esperance and France that she has helped sustain.

Looking further ahead, she plans a new duet project with Craig Ogden, the Australian guitarist now based in the UK. “Every new collaboration opens another door,” she says. “That’s the beauty of this life – you never stop discovering.”

The Music of Distance

For all her international acclaim, Riollot remains, in essence, an artist of intimacy. Her performances are marked by luminous tone, a sense of quiet concentration, and a belief that music is an act of communion. “Every note must mean something,” she says. “Every phrase must connect – to the composer, to the listener, to life itself.”

It is perhaps this sense of connection that makes her story feel so complete: a life begun in rural France, enriched by the world’s music, now rooted in the stillness of Australia’s far south. “I never imagined I would live here,” she says, gazing out towards the Southern Ocean. “But this is where the world feels most open to me. Where art and nature, past and present, finally meet.”

To find out more about Ingrid Riollot, and to purchase her recordings, visit her website.