Guitar maker Amsterdam
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
This is Nina Fourie Gouws. On her way to the Volterra Project of Antigoni Goni she stopped by in Amsterdam because she asked me to give her spruce top guitar a French polish touch up. She also has a cedar top on which she recently recorded a Bach Prelude.
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This is Olivier Mesnier, a very versatile, French guitar player who came all the way from France to Amsterdam to get new Graf Tuners on his guitar. Back home, he sent me this picture.
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.
This is Niels Eikelboom playing An Malvina by Johann Kaspar Mertz. Niels came to Amsterdam because he wanted to compare his cedar guitar with a spruce top model. After a detailed comparison he concluded that each model has its quality. He decided to keep the cedar and to add a spruce to his collection as well.