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Bernd Martin

Bernd Martin

Master guitar maker exclusively for GSI

I was the first foreigner, the first non-Spaniard, who came to Granada to learn how to make guitars.
Born1954
Died2018
NationalityGerman/Spanish

Born in Stuttgart in 1954, Bernd Martin learned to play both the piano and the guitar at a very young age. He continued his guitar studies in Stuttgart and in Munich, where he went to university.

In 1976 his passion for Spain, as well as the guitar, led him to move to Granada and to begin making his own guitars in the workshops of Antonio Durán and Jose Lopez Bellido, under the tutelage of Eduardo Ferrer. Bernd Martin was the first non-Spaniard to establish himself as a guitar maker in the city of the Alhambra, with a workshop in the Albayzín district.

In 1999 Bernd Martin won first prize in the “Concurso Nacional de Lutheria” (National Luthiery Competition) organized by José Luis Romanillos.

Bernd has a profound knowledge of the instruments of the great master luthiers (Antonio de Torres, Manuel Ramírez, Santos Hernandez, et. al), and through his collaboration with top guitarists, and his many years of investigation, he now builds tremendous guitars with a deep, rich and lyrical sound – guitars in which precise adjustments make perfection the standard, and which offer maximum comfort to the guitarist.

To date he has made over 400 guitars using traditional techniques – instruments that renew the legacy of the old masters, and that bridge the gap between the expressive lyricism of Spanish guitars and the polyphonic equilibrium of the European school.

Since 2006, Bernd Martin has been working with his son, Lucas, in a new shop, magnificently situated in Granada’s Sacromonte district.

Guitars by Bernd Martin