Spain

As far back as I can remember, I always liked guitars. As a musical instrument as well as a piece of art. Music became the most important thing in my life when I started to play electric guitar as a teenager. When I was 20, besides playing music, the local guitar shop hired me to change strings on...

I trained to be a violinist and music teacher. In fact, I worked as a music teacher for nine years. Being completely self-taught, I built violins for two years. Through this, I discovered this fascinating world of luthiery. After this experience I attended a guitar-making course by Rafael López Porras in...

I studied at the music conservatory in Buenos Aires until 1993. I have been alternating my activity as musician and luthier. I started making my first guitar in 1997/98 there, because I needed a good instrument that I couldn't afford. I took my first steps with a guitar maker...

Andalusian guitar-makers have played a fundamental role in the configuration of what we call today the "spanish guitar". Andalusia is not the only piece of the puzzle but without the pioneering work of makers like Francisco Sanguino (Sevilla in the 18th century), the Pagés dynasty (18th and 19th) or José Pernas (Granada in the 19th century) - just to mention a few of the better-known ones - we would not understand the decisive contributions made by Antonio de Torres from Almeria.

Actually, our history is too old and long to summarise here. Our workshop is the oldest in terms of Spanish guitars, handed down from from parents to sons. The founder was my great-grandfather, José Ramírez I, who learned this business when he was 12 in 1870. However, the latest research shows that there is a possibility that his father, who was a member of a woodworkers' trade union, as well as all the other guitar makers of that period...

I started as an apprentice in the Workshops of my father, renowned luthier Joaquin Garcia, at the age of fifteen. At first I worked with timbers of low quality until I learned to use the tools, to make the correct angles and the precise thicknesses; then I started the construction of my first instrument at 16 years of age...

Our workshop Manuel Contreras was established in 1962. The founder Manuel G. Contreras (1928-1994) became an independent luthier after having worked as a reputable cabinetmaker for years, having been introduced to the world of luthiery by working at the workshop of José Ramírez III for two years...

Everything began when I needed a luthier to fix problems of intonation of the guitar I was studying with. This destiny took me to the workshop of Yagüe brothers. Mr Raúl Yagüe accepted my request and the guitar was left perfect. Eventually, we became good friends and one day I ordered a Yagüe guitar. I was wondering if he would accept my commission, but to my great surprise...

I had always been enchanted by Granada. I arrived in the city in 1976 thus. I started to learn to play the piano at an early age. The passion for Spain and its culture led me to the guitar and I decided to try my luck at it. I made my first guitar at the workshop of José López Bellido, the patriarch Eduardo Ferrer's son-in-law. After completing my apprenticeship, I started my own business...

I'm a guitarist and also have been a flamenco guitar teacher for many years. This passion for the guitar led me to learn the profession/art of luthiery with a maestro luthier, Manuel Mayoral.