By Emile Menasché Joshia de Jonge has never known a world without the sights, smells, and sounds of guitars in the making. As the daughter of noted Canadian luthier Sergei de Jonge, the shop floor was literally the playground of her earliest memories; sawdust was her sandbox. “My dad was a guitar maker before I was born,” says de Jonge, via Zoom from her home in Québec. “As a little kid, I used to go to work with him and […]]]>
From the July/August 2020 issue of Acoustic Guitar | By Gary Parks Almost 50 years ago, master luthier Luis Uyaguari Quezada, then an adolescent, moved with his family to the metropolis of Cuenca, Ecuador, leaving behind the remote mountain village of San Bartolome. Their tiny pueblo had a generations-long tradition of guitar making, and Uyaguari’s father was one of the village’s best, yet he wanted to better his family’s lot in life. So in the early 1970s, Julio Uyaguari Vintimilla established his new Cuenca workshop […]]]>
From the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar | BY THÉRÉSE WASSILY SABA Over the past 100 years, the demands of a concert classical guitarist’s musical life—performing in large theaters, playing chamber music with other instruments that produce a substantially greater volume, performing concertos with orchestras, and recording—have forced guitarists to demand much more from their instruments. Thus, the challenge has presented itself to guitar makers throughout the world to build guitars with greater volume, more sustain, and increased sound […]]]>
What does it take to go from loving acoustic guitars to actually building them? To answer this, we asked a handful of luthiers to tell us their origin stories.]]>
From the Spring 2017 issue of Classical Guitar | BY KATHLEEN A. BERGERON It goes without saying that any Antonio de Torres guitar is, by definition, noteworthy. Those listed here, however, have unique aspects that make them stand out. The designation “FE” is for “First Epoch,” the period from 1852 up to the early 1870s, when Torres briefly retired from guitar-making. The second epoch (SE) began in 1875. FE 04 ‘La Leona’ Made in 1856, Torres’ most famous guitar is also […]]]>
Superb classical and flamenco guitars are made in every corner of the world, yet no other country’s socio-cultural relationship to an instrument is as close as Spain’s is to the guitar. ]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE FALL 2019 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR Some years ago, in the 1980s, when I was staying for a day or two at Julian Bream’s magnificent house in the English countryside, the great luthier José Romanillos joined us for dinner. After a wonderful meal, prepared by Julian himself, and several glasses of excellent claret, our tongues and our spirits were liberated and an intense discussion followed. José Romanillos at that time had not published any […]]]>
Historically, the skills in a number of different crafts have been passed down in families. In Spain, building guitars has long been a family business.]]>
Japanese luthiers were already building fine classical guitars in the 1960s and solving technical challenges that would soon make them major exporters well into the 1980s]]>
From the Summer 2017 issue of Classical Guitar | BY BLAIR JACKSON People do not usually associate classical- and flamenco-guitar lutherie with the sun-kissed islands of Hawaii, 8,000 miles from the birthplace of the Spanish guitar. Koa wood ukuleles, yes. Finely crafted concert instruments ready to tackle Tárrega or Paco? Not so much. But for nearly two decades, John A. Decker Jr. has been handcrafting instruments under the guitarmasterworks name out of his home shop in Wailuku, Maui, selling mostly […]]]>