I just spent two days in Turin, Italy with guitar-maker Valerio Licari. In addition to making classical guitars and his own Zen model he is a teacher at the Accademia Liuteria Piemontese San Filippo The accademia invited me to talk about the Granada School of Guitar-making on May 17th. My hosts were very gracious and helpful and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay. The installations at the school are excellent and the teaching staff and board members of the association very passionate and committed. I also met Mara Valdarchi, Tommaso Rovetta, Paula Lazzarini and Sebastiano Ferrari. I look forward to more collaborations of this sort. It was enjoyable to pass something on to the students and to hear their questions about Granada and its guitar-making tradition. Paula had spent some time in Granada a few years ago but we hadn’t met so it was nice to finally meet her and to exchange opinions with her.

John Ray, Valerio Licari, Tomasso Rovetta, Paula Lazzarini

Turin is an interesting city with its varied architecture and curious history. The Egytian Museum exists there because of a belief that the city had egyptian origins and Turin was the intellectual centre of the risorgimiento which resulted in the unification of Italy. This unified italian kingdom had its capital in Turin.