2023 Jose Vigil SP/CSAR

This 2023 Jose Vigil classical guitar, with a quartersawn spruce top and CSA rosewood back and sides, was handmade in Granada, Spain.

Spruce and Spectacular CSA Rosewood

A first-rate set of CSA rosewood forms the back and sides – chosen by Jose for its structural and sonic properties, though its beautiful grain and color are impossible to ignore. A quartersawn spruce top completes the pairing, and the rosette's central mosaic uses the "wave" pattern beloved of the Manuel Ramírez workers, and of Santos Hernández in particular.

Sound

The compact, lightweight Granada-school body gives quick response and big volume, with many colors of sound. The spruce top brings clarity and separation, balanced by a warm, almost "dark" undertone with an alluring mystique. A fantastic guitar from one of today's top Granada builders.

Photos of this guitar taken just after completion

Jose Vigil: From Asturias to Granada

Jose Vigil was born in Asturias, in northern Spain, in 1979, into a family of musicians, and has played guitar since his teens. His love of woodworking – he had studied cabinet making for some time – combined with his musical background naturally led him to guitar construction. During a trip to Granada in 2007 he met a guitar teacher who owned a guitar by Antonio Marín Montero, and he realized he was in the best possible place to learn the traditional methods of guitar making. Read more about Jose.

The Granada Guitar-Making Community

Jose settled in Granada and was welcomed warmly into the guitar-making community, where he received training, advice and friendship from the veterans of the craft – Antonio Marín, Rafael Moreno Rodríguez, Henner Hagenlocher and John Ray, as well as Edmund and Florian Blöchinger during their regular visits to Granada. After three years in a first workshop in a small mountain village outside the city, he moved to the Realejo neighborhood of Granada, just a few meters from Antonio Marín's workshop, where he spent – and still spends – long hours watching the master at work.

The "Granada" School: From Torres to Bouchet–Marín

Being in the "Granada" school, Jose's guitars have a slightly more compact body size, with great speed of response and big volume, and many nuances and colors of sound. His guitars have evolved from a smaller Torres plantilla and bracing to a slightly larger Bouchet–Marín style with stiffer cross-grain reinforcement: lightweight and responsive, but also round and rich, and aesthetically understated. Building, for Jose, is slow, methodical work: he takes great care not to create unnecessary tensions during assembly, prepares perfect joints, controls humidity throughout the build and assembles with hot hide glue only. GSI is proud to be Jose's exclusive dealer in the USA.