2025 Moonseok Choi SP/IN

This 2025 Moonseok Choi is a new classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, made in Stirling, Scotland, and based mainly on a 2009 Daniel Friederich.

Our Second Guitar from Stirling

This is our latest guitar from Moonseok Choi, our second from him built in his new home and workshop in Stirling, Scotland. He settled there after several years of moving and working in Malmö, Sweden, and Westervoort, Holland, and – as on earlier guitars, including one named “Nomad” – he fuses diverse design ideas inspired by those places. Malmö’s coastline gave him the decorative “fish” shapes in the central mosaic of the rosette, and the burled head veneer recalls the living “sea oak” seaweed seen when looking into the depths.

Rethinking the Structure after Granada

This guitar was developed after a 2024 visit to Granada, where he started rethinking the instrument’s structure. Until then, he had tuned the body resonance to around F#, inspired by traditional Torres-style instruments. But after further thought Moonseok sought to achieve better projection for performance in larger spaces and drew inspiration from Daniel Friederich’s guitars, which he studied during his time in Germany, resulting in this guitar, which resonates just above G#. This model is based mainly on a 2009 Friederich, with influences from some 1980s and 1992 models. It’s not a literal copy, however – Moonseok has added many of his own ideas, including slight structural changes and double sides. The bracing follows Friederich’s style, alternating between spruce and cedar, with the cedar contributing to a brighter, more lively tone while still keeping the structure strong.

A Personal Inscription

Moonseok also has this personal touch to the guitar:

“Inside the top plate, I’ve included my signature along with a verse from Mark in the bible: ‘Everyone ate and they all had enough food.’ This is a personal wish I include in every instrument. Regardless of religion, I hope my guitars can offer warmth and comfort to many people, like a small miracle through music.”

Sound

The sound is silky, textured and layered, yet the clarity and responsiveness are excellent. Like the instruments we’ve had from him before, it is meticulously made, with very clean craftsmanship – a true concert guitar ready for stage or studio. We are pleased to be representing this fine maker exclusively in the USA.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Moonseok Choi: A Korean Guitar Maker in Scotland

Currently based in Stirling, Scotland, Moonseok Choi is a veteran guitar maker who has been building guitars for nearly two decades. He studied with guitar maker Om Taechang in Seoul, Korea, from 2002 to 2005, and completed a Master’s degree in Musical Instrument Making at the Westsächsische Hochschule in Zwickau, Germany, where he lived from 2006 to 2010. It was there that he met and befriended Dominik Wurth, another fine maker whom we represent.

Inspired by Bouchet and Friederich

Moonseok builds mainly traditional instruments and prefers these to most modern designs, although he does build guitars with double backs as well – 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).

Restoring the Spanish Masters

In addition to building, Moonseok has done several significant repair and restoration jobs, including instruments by Manuel Ramírez, Miguel Rodríguez, Domingo Esteso and José Romanillos, to name just a few.