Otto Vowinkel

Guitar maker Amsterdam

spruce

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.

Esther Steenbergen

sakura cd esther steenbergen - small

Watch the video to see the hand of Hennie van der Vegt painting one of his famous blossoms. Esther used the painting for the cover of her latest CD which actually is an EP. It contains two pieces, Sakura, Theme and variations by Yuquijiro Yocoh and Bellefleur by Pieter van der Staak. I think she plays both of them beautifully. You can order the CD at her website. Of course it’s available for download as well.

Guitar Echoes

guitar echoes yiannis giagourtas

This is Guitar Echoes, the debut solo CD of Yiannis Giagourtas, a guitarist from Greece, whom I wrote about earlier.

For my debut album I chose to record works from a few of my favorite composers. This selection lit my passion for music, in particular for the classical guitar. I hope these pieces will touch your soul as they have touched mine!

In the video you can listen to a track of Guitar Echoes: Gnossiene nr. 1 by Erik Satie.
Guitar Echoes is for sale at CD Baby.

Eduardo Diaz

eduardo diaz - otto vowinkel
This is Eduardo Diaz, a guitarist- composer from Mexico, playing ‘Subiendo la Montaña’.

Inspired by the video of Yi Hui Wang Eduardo contacted me, to inquire about the model Yi Hui Wang is playing in the video. To avoid the waiting list he bought an instrument at GSI.

Eduardo Diaz has a very popular YouTube channel . Here he plays and promotes his compositions and arrangements. Most of them can be ordered at Per-Olov Kindgren’s online music shop.

Petko Genkov

This is Petko Genkov. He is a Bulgarian guitarist living in Dubai where he started his own music school. Last July he came to Amsterdam to pick up his guitar and in August he sent me his opinion about it.

petko genkov

I am playing several hours a day and I started to sense its values. Being a great fan of the Savarez strings I changed the strings with Savarez and the result is great. After the change of the strings the volume went a bit high which is excellent. The guitar sounds alluring and lyrical.

In the first days I started to play, the sound was a bit up. But now it is deeper and deeper. The strings separation is very clear. Few of my colleagues had the opportunity to listen to the guitar and they are very content with the result. Moreover I had the chance to listen to the guitar from the point of a listener.

The vibrato is very clear and sounds very poetic in the high frets. The basses are very deep. The combination between the discants and the basses is wonderful. I am sure that much of the development of the instrument is coming up. The fingerboard is very comfortable like Rolls Royce!!

In the end I want to say that the physical beauty of the guitar is extraordinary. As a Netherlands girl I named her Suscia. After the end of August the instrument will become an Arab princess!!

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.

Nina Fourie Gouws

This is Nina Fourie Gouws. I wrote about her earlier. Ten years ago she came all the way from South Africa to Amsterdam to pick up her new spruce guitar and last month she visited me again, this time to pick up a brand new cedar one . You can tell she is very happy with it. September 7, she will play her first concert on it. The ones who won’t be able to attend can listen to her beautiful interpretation of the first part of Koyunbaba by Carlo Domeniconi.

nina fourie gouws