at the workshop

Frauke Meyer

This is Frauke Meyer, student at the Staatlichen Berufsfachschule für Musikinstrumentbau Mittenwald, in Bavaria, Germany.

From an early age Frauke wants to become a professional guitar builder. She is always looking for opportunities to expand her knowledge. Now as a student luthier, she explores the world of guitarmaking through self-organized internships.

Searching the internet, Frauke came across my guitars, read about my work and listened to some sound samples. She wrote me an email and asked if she could do an internship with me during her Easter holidays.

To be honest, I’m not too fond of internships. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to share my knowledge. It’s because of the size of my workshop. It’s just too small for two luthiers at work. And besides that, interns take time and I’m a busy luthier.

This internship would only last two weeks and Frauke seemed very serious about it. So I made an exception and replied that she was welcome to come over.

Frauke turned out to be a serious student indeed. Eager to learn but also an easy and pleasant person to have around.

So, to anyone she’ll contact for her next internship, I wholeheartedly recommend her. To those who would like to keep track of her guitar building activities, you’ll find her on instagram @framey.guitars

Instrumentenbauschule Mittenwald

Made by Teun Rietveld

Wanting to add directing to his skills, offline editor Teun Rietveld asked if he could shoot some material of a guitar maker at work. in the old fashion way. Not on video, but analoge, on celluloid. Together with Gábor Deák on camera and Paul Damen as his camera assistent, he spent two pleasant days in my workshop. After the shooting it took a while before I heard from him. Last month he sent me a message. It had taken a little longer than planned. Below the nice result.

Otto Vowinkel, Gábor Deák, Paul Damen, Teun Rietveld

Susana Opanski

These are Susana Opanski, Costas Cotsiolis and students of Susana in the dressing room of Costas after his concert in our series Meesters op de Gitaar. Susana and her students are loyal visitors to the series.

Susana Opanski is convinced that music connects people and that playing an instrument plays an important role in the personal development of children and young people.

For more than 20 years Susana Opanski is working as a guitar teacher at the Music School in Amersfoort. Besides that she develops educational projects to bring children into contact with music.

In addition to being a guitarist, bassoonist and guitar teacher, Susana Opanski is also the founding conductor a of the Student Gitaar Ensemble Nederland (SGEN). Last year the ensemble released a CD thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign. Significant donors were rewarded with a visit to my workshop.

On May 25, the ensemble can be heard at the Vondelkerk in Amsterdam.
Our concert series continues in September. Subscriptions for sale.

Krisna and Prawira Pijloo

These are Krisna and Prawira Pijloo after having performed Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve in Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Both Krisna and Prawira play the guitar from an early age and both want to become professional guitarists.

We invited them to play one piece before Rafael’s concert, to get a taste of the real thing. In the video below you can see them getting prepared, at home as well as right before the concert.

I know Krisna and Prawira since 2013 as you can see in the other video, recorded when they visited the workshop with their parents.

Kimiko Kawabata

This is Kimiko Kawabata, a Japanese calligraphy artist, living in Leiden (the Netherlands) since 1972.

Inspired by haikus of master poet Basho describing the beauty of the area of Fukushima, Kimiko made a series of calligraphies for an exposition in Huis de Pinto in Amsterdam.

Next weekend, during the closure of the exposition a series of concerts will take place. One of the concerts will be given by Hambre y Sed the guitar ensemble of which Kimoko Kawabata is a member.

The revenues of the exposition and concerts will be handed to the victims of Fukushima by Kimiko personally. Since the region was destroyed by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011, Kimoko travels to Fukushima at least once a year,

Sad update May 2019

Tara Stewart

This is Tara Stewart taking a picture. Tara is flamenco aficionado, professional filmer and video editor. She shoots and edits all video’s for Guitar Salon International, my dealer in the USA.

A couple of weeks ago Tara came to Amsterdam for a holiday and brought her camera. She visited my workshop where I happened to be working on a new guitar for GSI! She took pictures and filmed and the beautiful result can be seen in GSI’s blog post Coming soon Otto Vowinkel.

While she was busy working, her boyfriend, Los Angelos Guitar Quartet member John Dearman, tried a new ceder top.

Thomas Vowinkel

This is Thomas Vowinkel, an electric bass player from Germany who got interested in classical guitar playing. When he started looking for a new instrument he found out about a guitar maker in Amsterdam, named just like him!

Although my grandfather – named Otto Vowinkel too – comes from the same area as where Thomas Vowinkel comes from, it seems like that Thomas and I are not related family wise.

Thomas took some beautiful pictures of his stay in Amsterdam. The one on top he named The three Vowinkel’s.

Tom

This is Tom. He came to the workshop to make this reportage about guitar making as a profession. The reportage was broadcasted on AT5, Amsterdam’s News Channel.

Tom likes playing the guitar and wanted to know how a guitar is being made. Since the reportage is part of a series about all kind of professions, I told him the best way to become a guitar maker is to just start making them.

Hans Bergram

I got this cartoon years ago as a ‘thank you’ gift for repairing the bridge of a bass. It’s in my office for years now and I share it with you in this post. I lost contact with the cartoonist. Even Google couldn’t help me finding him.

Ricardin Hwang

This is Ricardin Hwuang, a classical guitarist from South-Korea. Last December he made a trip through Europe including Amsterdam. While being so near, he visited the beautiful Zaanse Schans where, to his big surprise, he bumped into Aniello Desiderio .

He posted many pictures of his trip on Facebook account but this movie is not there yet. I made it in my workshop, the day he picked his new guitar. The ticking at the beginning comes from his wife’s photo camera.