2015 German Vázquez Rubio "Hauser" No. 91815 CD/IN

This 2015 German Vázquez Rubio “Hauser” No. 91815 is a classical guitar with a cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides, made in Los Angeles, California – a cedar-top version of his award-winning model.

After Segovia’s 1937 Hauser

German’s model takes its structural details largely from the famous 1937 Hauser I of Andrés Segovia – the guitar he played for decades of concerts and recordings, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This is the model that won German First Place at the Concurso Nacional de Constructores y Ejecutantes de Guitarras in 2000, and it is perhaps his best known – John Holmquist and Jason Vieaux have used it on five Naxos recordings between them.

A Cedar Top

The sound quality, craftsmanship and playability easily live up to the model’s reputation. Bold, clear and balanced – and with a nice overtone texture thanks to the cedar top – this guitar records and concertizes beautifully. Its “Desde 1968” label carries German’s signature, the year 2015 and No. 91815.

German Vázquez Rubio: Early Years in Paracho, Mexico

German Vázquez Rubio (also known as G.V. Rubio) has been making guitars since 1968 – over fifty years – and has developed his own signature sound that guitarists have come to love. He was born in 1952 in Paracho, Mexico, where there is an abundance of fine luthiers (with few exceptions, all of the finest guitars in Mexico come from Paracho). German’s first formal training began at eleven years old, when he left school to help support his seven siblings and went to work in the workshop of his uncle, Manuel Rubio. There, even at his young age, he made a conscious effort to make guitar building his life’s work.

“Desde 1968”

In 1968, at the age of sixteen, he made his first concert-level guitar (hence his label reads “Desde 1968”). German has since been able to learn from many different master builders such as Félix Manzanero, José Romanillos and Thomas Humphrey. He now resides in Los Angeles, California, where he builds a variety of both classical and flamenco models. He is also the maker of the real-life guitar from the Disney/Pixar film Coco – you can read more in our article on German Vázquez Rubio and the real Coco guitar.

First Prize in Mexico

In 2000, German won First Place at the Concurso Nacional de Constructores y Ejecutantes de Guitarras, Mexico’s national guitar-making competition.