Otto Vowinkel

Guitar maker Amsterdam

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Eduardo Bossa

eduardo bossa luthier otto vowinkel

This is Eduardo Bossa on the balcony of his house in Cartagena (Colombia).

A few years ago Eduardo Bossa came to my workshop in Amsterdam where he studied classical guitar at the conservatory. Last October, after a concert in Cartagena by Esther and the Trejos Brothers, we met again. I am a guitar maker now Eduardo said and to my surprise the visit to my workshop had been of great influence to him, to become one. The atmosphere, the work, the peace, it had all appealed to him. And in the course of time he slowly but surely started to realize he would rather be a guitar builder than a guitarist.

Eduardo built a number of guitars and also does a lot of repairing. He introduced Esther and me to another Colombian guitar maker, Luis Alberto Paredes Rodríguez. He wrote a book about guitar building which was just published.

Last week Eduardo sent me an email to let me know, things are going well and his website is up in the air.

Nelson Faria

Nelson Faria and Joao Bosco

This is Nelson Faria together with the legendary guitarist João Bosco.

Nelson Faria is a Brazilian guitarist, arranger and teacher. He performed with the greatest artists, can be listened to on numerous recordings and wrote a standard work for guitarists about how to play Brazilian music.

His program Um café lá em casa (a coffee at home) is ingenious in its simplicity: inviting colleague musicians for a coffee and a talk about their life, career and music. The conversations are in Portuguese but also for non Portuguese speakers it’s worth watching since live music forms it’s main part. A real must see for all those who love – Brazilian – music.

Sanel Redzic

Sanel Redzic

This is Sanel Redzic performing in the documentary ‘An extraordinary life’ made by the Paris Guitar Foundation. Sanel Redzic tells about the coincidence that played an important role in his life, what taking part in competitions meant for him and about his study in Weimar.

Augustin Pesnon, founder of the Paris Guitar Foundation shot the documentary himself as you can see in his vlog.

Dragan Marinkovic

dragan marinkovic playing a 3a otto vowinkel guitar

This is Dragan Marinkovic, a guitarist from Bosnia Herzegovina. He is working as a professor in elementary and secondary music school. A couple of years ago he organized a guitar festival in Banja Luka in Bosnia where two of the competitors playing my guitars, won the competition in their categories. Dragan liked their guitars and later he bought one himself.

Dragan Marinkovic has his own YouTube Channel where he uploads his arrangements of songs by Tina Turner, David Bowie, Sting, a.o.. Recently he sent me an email to let me know that he was very pleased with the instrument

which turned out to be a great recording instrument as well.

To underline this he made this beautiful recording of Il Sentimentale opus 148, nr. 4 by Mauro Giuliani.

Tom

AT5 Otto Vowinkel Basta TV

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.

Allemande BWV 996

allemande bwv 996

This is Drew Henderson performing Allemande BWV 996 by J.S. Bach. The Allemande consists of two parts, both repeated with ornaments. This makes four parts in one piece which in this video are used to compare four different guitars, built by four different makers.

In order of ‘appearance’ you hear instruments by Douglass Scott, Mathew Rubendall and James White. From 2:05 you can listen to a cedar top 2A guitar by me.

Listen and judge yourself. The 2A guitar from this video can be bought at the Canadian store Grand Salon the Guitare where the video was recorded. You can order a 2A guitar with one of my dealers or directly with me.

Meesters op de Gitaar

meesters op de gitaar 2016-2017

This is the brochure of Meesters op de Gitaar coming season, 2016-17.

Since 1998 Esther and I organize three concerts a year at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the world famous venue with one of the most beautiful acoustics for classical guitar imaginable.

This season we are happy to present Jason Vieaux, Marcin Dylla en Rafael Aguirre.

If you want to know who else we invited in the past eighteen years, you can have a look at the archive of the series.

You can buy a subscription at the website of the Concertgebouw.

Tickets for the sole concerts will be available from June 1st.