Otto Vowinkel is a household name in the classical guitar world; a renowned luthier with customers all over the world. A guitar maker with great attention to detail and a strong preference for traditionally built guitars.
His instruments are physically light, incredibly easy to play, ultra-responsive and very powerful. His guitars have outstanding tonal qualities, evenness in sound colour and a perfect intonation.
His concert guitars are completely French polished with shellac finish. The unique rosette design features herringbone in the purfling surrounding the mosaic, which is the motif found in the flag for the city of Amsterdam. The headstock is carved after the facade of his workshop.
In addition to the traditional, classical model, Otto Vowinkel builds baritone guitars (fifth bass), cutaway’s, seven-string and flamenco guitars. His study models are hand-built under his supervision in Spain.
Otto Vowinkel uses Canadian cedar or European spruce for the top and different types of rosewood for the back and sides. He also uses, with very good results, coco bolo, maple and Spanish cypress (flamenco guitars).
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Robin Scherpen with For the Unseen at Het Concertgebouw
This is Robin Scherpen, a Dutch guitarist with a truly remarkable program. Due to an eye condition, he was no longer able to read sheet music. Following a daring yet successful eye operation, he was forced to spend a long time in a dark room. There he began composing, purely by intuition. It resulted in…
Continue Reading Robin Scherpen with For the Unseen at Het Concertgebouw
A message from Claudia
This is Claudia Donat, a Swedish amateur guitarist. She sent me an email. With her permission quoted in its entirety underneath. “Dear Mr VowinkelI wanted to write to you for a long time but I did not dare. Because I am a simple amateur, learning the guitar in my little cottage. I started my journey…
Volker Reichl hopes for many more coffees
https://youtu.be/gPBQ9U3-JwE?si=cl0j9Bb_DIeJ6WBs This is a video of Volker Reichl, a guitarist from Germany, performing L’ ultimo caffè, by the Italian composer Simone Iannarelli (Rome, 1970). I couldn’t find much information about Volker, except that he usually performs in a duo with a violinst named Petr Sakine. His video and performance are dedicated to Sara, to whom…