The streets were full of young guitar-makers this evening. The participants in this year’s competition are here in Granada and meeting with David Collet throughout the day one on one. The jury’s examinations of the guitars and the sound tests will start tomorrow at 10am. I have had quite a few of the participants pass through my shop to say hello and to show me their guitars. The level this year looks good so far and it is always a pleasure to meet people who are truly in love with the guitar; who dream only of building instruments that will sound in the hands of the best musicians. The list of participants has not been published but there are entries from China, Japan, France, USA, Mexico, Holland, Italy, perhaps a majority from Spain and four of those from Granada. Hopefully tomorrow I can share the names of the participants.
Category Archives: Guitar making
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
It was an absolute pleasure to meet the members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: Bill Kanengiser, John Dearman, Matt Greif and Scott Tennant last night. It was their first concert in Granada ever and Bill expressed their satisfaction at finally making it here. This is why we need CSU Summer Arts and the Guitar Festival in Granada. As usual, guitarists, guitar-makers, organisers, students and assorted family members traipsed off to the nearest open-air restaurant for refreshment in the mercifully cooler evening after the concert. Bill had plenty of questions about the Alhambra which he was visiting the next day and as always I found myself wishing for a bit more knowledge about it.
Bach, Bizet, Debussy, Hand, and various Spanish and English renaissance composers made for an eclectic and thoroughly enjoyable concert. In addition to the pieces on the programme they played two movements from Metheny’s Road to the Sun, a wonderful piece written just for them. Most of the arrangements seemed to be the work of either Bill or Scott. The guitars all seemed to do what was asked of them in the relatively large hall along with some discreet miking. My only complaint of the evening 
was the thing that Bill plays, although it has huge volume, it doesn’t sound like a guitar at all.
Asociación de Guitarreros de Granada
California State University is for the second year in a row holding their Guitarra Española course (part of Summer Arts) here in Granada. This year twenty-four students have come to study the guitar in a wonderful setting with guitarists of international repute. This morning classes were cancelled and the Granada Guitar-makers Association was asked to invite the guitar-makers to show their guitars to these students. This was, for all intents and purposes, the public presentation of the Association. The students were thrilled to have us come to them and to meet the people behind their favorite instrument.
The guitar-makers association is made up of a group of makers who wish to have Granada recognized as an international centre for guitar-making, support one another and to convince the different levels of government that the guitar in general and specifically this craft is worth promoting. For this reason we support Summer Arts and Vicente Coves and his Festival Internacional de la Guitarra de Granada. Not all guitar-makers in Granada are members of the association and the reasons include the following. Some are not full-time, professional makers, some sell guitars made by others instead of their own work, and others can’t see the benefit of working towards common goals. We hope to convince a larger number of makers as time goes on.
Mabel Millán
Last night’s concert included some of the most expressive playing I have heard in a long time. Mabel and Celia Millán are sisters from Cordoba, the first plays the guitar and the second the piano. I have never been a big fan of the piano and certainly never imagined enjoying a concert including duets of guitar and piano. Last night proved me wrong and the programme, while very popular was beautifully played. Some pieces were a dialogue between the two, in others the piano was limited to a basso continuo or an orchestral type accompaniment and one (Sevilla) even gave the piano complete centre stage while the guitar acompanied. The pianist played everything with a perfect sensitivity to the guitarist’s needs and only in Sevilla did it mask the sound of the guitar at some points. At 24 years old, these two excellent musicians have an unlimited future ahead of them. My only regret is that I didn’t know anything about these two players and did not bring my family along to enjoy the music. Congratulations to Vicente Coves for bringing us these two jewels.
Invencible update
