Guitar maker Amsterdam
This is Arne Willems, a classical guitarist from Wuppertal, Germany. The picture above was taken back in 2017 when he visited my workshop to collect his guitar. The picture can be found on his instagram account. Every now and then, Arne drops by for lunch, combining his holidays at the Dutch coast with a social visit. Last month he sent me two YouTube videos in which he premieres the work of his friend, composer Marius Bajog. I herewith forward them. Arne plays a cedar top concert model.
Sanel Redzic, the young, successfull guitarist I have written about earlier, invested a lot of time and effort in making high quality recordings. It pays off as one can see on his YouTube channel where he releases new videos on a regular basis.
Recently he released an original quarantine video: Lau Euskal Abesti, four Basque songs by composer Jesus Guridi. It was written for guitar trio and Sanel Redzic takes care of all three parts.
Last year Sanel also released a new cd called Journey with music by Aguado, Tarrega, de Falla and Bach.
In the video and on the cd Sanel playes two different concert guitars. The one on the cd was built in 2004. The one in the video in 2019. For more info about Sanel and his cds, please check out his website.
This is Nina Fourie Gouws, AKA Nina_Guitar. I wrote about her earlier.
Nina is a South-African guitarist. Active as a concert player as well as a guitar lecturer at Stellenbosch Konservatorium where she teaches pre-undergraduate and undergraduate practical music studies, accompaniment, repertoire studies and teaching methodology.
Nina plays a cedar top concert guitar with, as you can see in the picture above, a beautiful back.
Nina is very active on Instagram where I found all photos in this post – taken by Marnhe Grové. Among other things, she uses Instagram to keep herself motivated and to share her ideas about practising .
Last year she challenged herself with a so-called # 100daysofpractice in which she posted a video of her progress every day. This year she is doing something similar but reduced the challenge to # 40daysofpractice. Below you can watch day 32: a short video from Asturias, recorded by candlelight due to a power outage.
Keep it up Nina, only 8 more days to go!
This José Antonio López, a classical guitarist from Puerto Rico. Every year he travels through Europe, accompanying his students from the Universidad de Puerto Rico where he teaches at the Department of Humanities. Last year he paid me a visit.
This year he came to collect his guitar and to celebrate we went out for dinner. José Antonio is very active man. Performing, teaching, composing and traveling. He does it all and all with great dedication.
Check out his instagram account where he posted a lot of pictures and video’s of his new instrument: a concert guitar with maple back and sides and a spruce top. I herewith forward one which shows the beautiful bear claw spruce.
This is Tiana Taya, a Serbian guitarist living in Barcelona, Spain. She tagged me on Facebook, posting a recording of Se Ela Perguntar by the Brazilian composer Dilermando Reis. I think she plays it beautifully and asked her if I could share the video which I could, but for some reasons I couldn’t share it on my website. But then guitarist Ozan Saritepe found the video on the YouTube Channel of RM Acoustics, so here it is.
My concert model with maple back and sides played by Tiana in the video, is getting more and more populair now. Soon I will post about the one which just arrived at Guitar Salon International. Irina Kulikova will make a recording with it to which I am looking forward very much. But first Tiana Taya, on top of the mountain, playing Dilermando Reis.
This is Noppakorn Auesirinucroch (left) with three of his fellow students. Noppakorn studies with Enno Voorhorst at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag and came to the workshop to try a guitar. His friends, two classical guitar players and a classical saxofoon player, accompanied him.
Noppakorn wants a maple – bearclaw spruce guitar. Maple guitars are getting more and more populair now. Soon there will be one available at GSI about which I will post later on.
Especially for the blog Noppakorn played a fragment of l’Aube du dernier jour by Francis Kleynjans. The brand new guitar in the video is a concert model with a spruce top and rosewood back and sides, an instrument waiting to be sent to its new owner, which explains the protection underneath the bridge.
These are the Argentian guitarists Luis Salinas and Ernesto Snajer in Notas de Paso, Ernesto’s music talk show in which he invites his collegues and friends to discuss musical style, performing, arranging ,instruments and everything else that is or has been important in their professional career.
The program was never meant to be didactic but a lot can be learned by listening to Ernesto’s guests. Those who don’t understand a word of the Castellano, can simply enjoy the music played by these top of the bill musicians.
Listen and watch
Milonga Sentimental by Sebastián Piana (fragments) – 4:17 – improvisations at 6:10 and 8:10.
How insensitive by Carlos Jobim – 10:24.
Zamba en Mi by Master Salinas himself – 17:19.
For this occasion Luis Salinas plays the cutaway (concert model) which I made especially for Ernesto and about which I wrote earlier.
This is Emil Hadžiefendić, a young, gifted guitarist from Tuzla. Like most succesfull guitarists from Bosnia Herzegovina, he is a student of the well known teacher Predrag Stanković about whom I wrote earlier.
Predrag Stanković started a Guitar Summer School with the unpronounceable name PRST. His former students Denis Azabagic and Sanel Redžić are also teaching at the PRST.
In the video below Emil is playing La Serenor, the first part of Collectici Intim by the Spanish composer Vicente Asencio. The video is an excerpt of a reportage about the festival by Ljetni Magazin. The reportage (in Serbo Croation) can be found here.
This Summer Emil took part in the Solo Guitar competition of the Transilvania Guitar Association and won the first prize! More information , again for the ones who read Serbo Croation can be found on Tuzlarije.
Emil Hadžiefendić plays a spruce concert model.
This is Esther during her concert in Taiwan. She was invited by the Taiwan Guitar Seminar to play a solo concert and accepted the kind invitation of Michael Luo and Alfredo Huang. She is preparing a sequel to her Bach cd so she decided to play Bach a.o.
Since playing solo is not her favorite thing to do, she asked the organization if she could add some chamber music to the program and that’s how the cooperation with mezzo-soprano Cheng, Hai-Yun and violinist Tsai Tsung-Yen started (see video below).
I too was invited, to give a lecture and do some workshops. I talked about my way of working and I taught guitarists how to take care of their instruments and how to do some small repairments themselves.
This is Matthijs van Delft, a young, Dutch guitarist, studying at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag with Fernando Cordas in his Young Talent Class. Matthijs came to the workshop together with his father to buy a new guitar. Less than a month later he sent me an email, telling me that he is very happy with his guitar and won the junior competition of the Antwerpen Guitar Festival as well as the Leo Brouwer prize!
Well done Matthijs!! Congratulations!
