2024 Valerio Licari "Albayzín" CD/IN

This is a fantastic guitar from Valerio Licari, now based out of Turin, Italy. Although thoroughly "Spanish" in its build, the aesthetic details on this guitar are drawn from Valerio's Italian roots. His previous "Albayzín" model built for us featured details from the "Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore" in Florence. For this new guitar, he instead has fused in decorative motifs from the famous "Pantheon" in Rome - in particular the interior reliefs found on the underside of its famous dome have been reproduced for the central mosaic section of the rosette, giving the guitar a very satisfying "architectural" look. Materials used are western red cedar with an amazing amount of beautiful "aguas" throughout for the top, paired with beautifully quartersawn Indian rosewood back and sides, a Honduran cedar neck (with internal carbon fiber reinforcement), ebony fingerboard with 20 frets and bone saddle and nut. Tuning machines are by Alessi - his "Hauser" style with ebony knobs. The guitar is finely French polished. Because Valerio built this with the traditional 5 bars-fan bracing inspired by Antonio Marin Montero, he has lovingly named this guitar "Albayzín" as a tribute to his guitarmaking roots in Granada, Spain. The guitar boasts a robust, rich sound - quite warm and full - characteristic of a great cedar top yet retaining great clarity and balance across all registers, which is more typical of spruce. His instruments have been played most-notably by Andrea de Vitis and Pat Metheny, to name a couple of top guitarists. We are very pleased to be representing this fine maker as his exclusive US dealer.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Valerio Licari was born in Rome, Italy, in 1981. As a teenager, his musical studies began with the classical guitar but he later learned to play other styles including acoustic fingerstyle, blues and ragtime, and eventually even started taking violin lessons. His academic work was entirely focused on music, including work in ethnomusicology, musical art and performance. He even enrolled in the International School of Violin Making "Antonio Stradivari" in Cremona and did an internship in bow making, ultimately receiving his diploma from this respected institution. In 2012, after working for six months as guitar wood production manager at Tonewood International in Cremona, he moved to Malaga, Spain, for a six-month apprenticeship with classical guitar maker Daniele Chiesa. It was at this time that he decided to settle in Spain - in order to more deeply study its traditional methods in classical and flamenco guitar making. He set up his workshop in Granada where he has remained until late 2019, when he decided to move back to his come country of Italy. He is now based out of Turin where he also teaches at the musical instrument-making college called Accademia Liuteria Piamontese San Filippo.