2021 Kenny Hill "Torres 640" SP/CSAR

This 2021 Kenny Hill "Torres 640" is a compact, 640 mm scale classical guitar of spruce and CSA rosewood after the Sevilla guitars of Antonio de Torres, played by Hugo Moltó in De Lhoyer's Variations on "God Save the King" on this page.

A Kenny Hill Tribute to Torres

Torres, the "father of the modern guitar", laid down most of the design principles that virtually every guitar maker since has followed. For this model Kenny drew on the guitars of Torres' first epoch, built in Sevilla: a smaller body, more compact in all its dimensions, the classic Torres fan bracing with 7 fans (on some small-bodied guitars Torres used 5), and a very comfortable 640 mm string length.

Details

The rosette is a checkerboard mosaic between bands of green herringbone, echoed in the purflings of the soundboard. The spruce top shows subtle bear claw and cross-grain "aguas" – the mark of a fine quartersawn cut – and the back and sides are lush CSA rosewood.

Sound

Strong, with singing highs and solid basses: a smaller instrument with a full concert sound. Although second-hand, it is in excellent condition, with minimal playing wear in the finish.

Kenny Hill: Guitarist and Guitar Maker

Kenny Hill was born in San Jose, California, and is a performing guitarist and composer as well as a guitar maker. Largely self-taught, he began building guitars professionally in the 1970s in Santa Barbara. In the 1980s he set guitar making aside to raise his four children – though he never stopped performing – and in 1989 he returned to the workbench with copies of historic instruments by Torres, Fleta, Hauser, Rodríguez and Panormo: the beginning of his "Master Series".

From Soledad and Paracho to the Santa Cruz Mountains

In 1993 a grant allowed Kenny to set up a guitar-building shop at Soledad State Prison in California. Two years later he traveled to Paracho, Mexico, as a writer for Acoustic Guitar magazine, to cover a master class led by José Luis Romanillos, and in 1996 he established a workshop there, spending five years building a market for Paracho's guitars. Out of this work grew workshops in California, Mexico and China: his "New World" guitars are made in Guangzhou, China, in a factory of which he is a founding shareholder, and he is designer emeritus and a long-time consultant for Cordoba Guitars.

Kenny's own Signature and Performance models – with double tops, lattice bracing and sound ports – are built by hand in his workshop in Ben Lomond, in the mountains near Santa Cruz, California, by a team of about six craftsmen that includes his son and son-in-law. In 2015 the Guitar Foundation of America honored him with its Industry Leadership Award.

Kenny Hill Guitars at GSI

Many Kenny Hill guitars have passed through our doors, from his Master Series replicas of the great historical makers to his modern Signature and Performance models.