2025 Moonseok Choi CD/AR

This is our first cedar-top guitar from Moonseok Choi, as well as our first instrument built in his new home and workshop in Stirling, Scotland where he has settled after several years of moving and working in Malmö, Sweden and Westervoort, Holland. As with our last guitar from him, named "Nomad" he has attempted to fuse together several different and diverse design ideas, inspired by these different locations. For aesthetics, the coastal town of Malmö, Sweden inspired the decoratvie "fish" shapes in the central mosaic of the rosette, and the use of burled wood for the head veneer reminds him of the living "sea oak" seaweed that is visible when looking into the depths. For sound, Moonseok is blending the sound of his French models (in particular the early guitars of Robert Bouchet and Daniel Friederich) with the old Spanish masters (notably Torres, Manuel Ramirez and Santos Hernandez) whom he admires greatly. Indeed, recent travels took him on tours of Italy and Spain where he was able to see more than 30 original instruments by these historical makers, which helped him to appreciate and absorb the tonal characteristics of these great masterpieces of the past. For this instrument, he is using a 7 fan system with alternating braces of spruce and cedar, and two cross-supports that improve the clarity and brightness, greatly benefiting the cedar top, which inherently "wants" to be warmer with a thicker overtone content. He cites 3 Friederich guitars in particular (1980, 1992 and 2009,) as the primary inspiration for the bracing of this guitar. The resulting sound is silky, textured and layered, but with excellent clarity and responsiveness. As with previous instruments we've had in the past, this guitar is meticulously made with very clean craftsmanship. Overall, a true concert guitar ready for stage or studio. Although a second-hand guitar, it is in excellent condition with only some minor wear in the finish. We are pleased to be representing this fine maker exclusively in the USA.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Currently based in Stirling, Scotland, Moonseok Choi is a veteran guitar maker who has been building guitars for nearly 2 decades. He studied with guitar maker Om Taechang in Seoul, Korea from 2002-2005, and completed a Masters degree in Musical Instrument Making from the Westsaechsische Hochschule in Zwickau, Germany where he lived from 2006-2010. It was there where he met and befriended Dominik Wurth, another fine maker whom we represent. Moonseok builds mainly traditional instruments and prefers these to most modern designs, although he does build guitars with double backs as well - this is the result of his thesis in Zwickau where he studied the efficiency of the energy transmission of the sound as it projects from the stage to the audience. As his most influential luthiers, he cites Robert Bouchet and Daniel Friederich, and he pursues his "production approach based on their acoustic approach". He also feels a special connection to Bouchet, since his childhood dream was to become a painter (his mother loved art). In addition to building, Moonseok has done several significant repair and restoration jobs including instruments by Manuel Ramirez, Miguel Rodriguez, Domingo Esteso, and Jose Romanillos to just name a few.