2026 Brian Itzkin "635" No. 57 SP/AR

This 2026 Brian Itzkin “635” No. 57 is a compact classical guitar with a bearclaw Italian Alpine spruce top and African rosewood back and sides and a short 635 mm scale, made in New York.

In the videos above, Davide Picci plays Mathias Duplessy’s “Cavalcade” on this guitar, and our demo video shows it from every angle.

Lightning Strikes Twice

This is our second guitar from Brian, who we feel is currently the number-one young/up-and-coming US luthier. Hands-down. And all we can say is that lightning has struck again. To us, this guitar has it all – power, weight, playability, looks and, above all, sound. It may be a “modern” guitar, but it carries the spirit of the old Spanish instruments that players, audiences and music lovers have adored for a century and a half.

Sound

Brian’s devotion to the tradition – and to his hero Antonio de Torres – is channeled straight into this build, and it’s wonderfully refreshing to hear his enthusiasm and understanding of the craft come through so clearly. All the more astonishing from a maker who isn’t even 30 years old yet! The tone is dark, deep and old-world, every note rich in harmonics while the fundamental stays pure and unclouded, helped by the low body resonance. Clear and focused, yet rich and beautiful, it offers an unusually wide range of colors – a true “symphony in a box” – and gives a sensitive guitarist everything needed to bring any musical idea in the repertoire to life.

A “Lignophile’s” Guitar: Three African Rosewoods

The guitar is as beautiful in appearance as in sound. His materials are incredible, and we’ve discovered that Brian is quite the “lignophile” (yes, that’s a real word!). For this guitar he used three different “African rosewoods”: the fingerboard and head veneer are Dalbergia trichocarpa, one of – if not the – densest rosewoods from Madagascar; the bridge is Dalbergia baronii, the most common Madagascan rosewood; and the back and sides are Dalbergia greveana, a fairly plain-looking Madagascan species whose weight, density and tap tone are all nearly identical to Dalbergia nigra from Brazil. The bindings are holly, and the soundboard is highly marbled “bearclaw” Italian Alpine spruce – an unbelievable set with copious amounts of “aguas”, giving not just a lustrous “3D” appearance but also a sign of being perfectly quartersawn, the most structurally, aesthetically and sonically desirable cut from the log – wow!

The “635”: A Compact Classical Guitar after Torres and Hauser

Structurally, Brian worked with the general ideas of Torres and Hermann Hauser, using a 7-fan system with a bridge patch. The shorter 635 mm scale and 51 mm nut make this guitar comfortable in practically anyone’s hands, and absolutely nothing is given up in either quantity or quality of sound – the guitar itself may be more compact, but the tone is not: it remains as huge as his full-sized build.

Inspired by Torres FE-05, FE-21A and Vicente Arias

The four-piece back and overall body proportions were inspired by several old guitars – Brian mentions two Torres, FE-05 from 1857 and FE-21A from 1864, as well as an 1870 Vicente Arias. The rosette borrows the chain-link motif of a group of Torres guitars from 1887–1888 (SE 111–116) for its central band, flanked on either side by several layers of green, brown and blonde purflings and single bands of half-herringbone in a ratio of 3 brown to 5 white – subtle yet striking to the eye.

Beautifully made throughout, this guitar sounded incredible straight out of the case, with only more to come as it is played in. We are very happy to be working with this fine maker and look forward to many more!

Photos of this guitar taken during and after construction.

A Classical Guitarist from Long Island

Brian Itzkin was born in 1996 just outside of New York City, on the north shore of Long Island. He began guitar lessons at the local music store at age 8, originally wanting to learn his favorite rock and roll riffs, but found himself with a classical teacher who was at the time a DMA candidate at Stony Brook University. Brian remained with this teacher for 10 years, learning to read music and play in the classical style. His childhood teacher, Jason Priset, is now the director of the Lute Society of America’s “Lute Fest” and an adjunct professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Brian has recently been working on his playing again and is doing quite well.

First Guitars and Ervin Somogyi

His introduction to guitar making came when he built his first guitar at the age of 13 from a C.F. Martin kit in his father’s poorly equipped basement workshop. Brian says that it was somewhat playable, but it inspired him to build another. After that second guitar, Brian began a correspondence with the highly regarded steel-string maker Ervin Somogyi, which lasted from the ages of 14 to 18. During this time Somogyi sent Brian assignments by mail and email, and the two met yearly at the Woodstock Invitational Luthier Showcase. Their correspondence focused on guitar design, and although Somogyi is a steel-string maker, the ideas he taught and shared with Brian were a major catalyst for Brian’s switch to classical guitars.

Training in Spain with Stephen Hill

At 20 years old, in 2016, Brian took a “semester” off from college after his sophomore year to attend Stephen Hill’s guitar making course in Spain. This proved to be a revelatory experience, and Brian decided to postpone his university studies in favor of studying guitar making. The following year he spent 3 months studying with Daniele Chiesa in the south of Spain and further immersed himself in the Granada guitar making tradition. Back at home, from the end of 2017 until the first months of 2020, he equipped his workshop, collected materials and independently studied the life and work of makers like Antonio de Torres (his chief influence – those of you familiar with Brian will know that he even has a Torres headstock design tattooed on his forearm!), Robert Bouchet, Santos Hernández and Hermann Hauser, before returning to Stephen’s shop in March 2020.

The Granada Tradition

Brian stayed in Spain throughout the Covid lockdown until early September, and in that time built and sold 3 guitars. He learned enormously from this opportunity to spend so much extra time with Stephen, Evan Kingma and Alessandro Perciaccante, who at that time was taking over the role of Stephen’s apprentice as Evan prepared to return to Canada. Brian has since returned to Spain for at least 3 months every year, and has befriended and (in a very informal sense) learned more about the Granada tradition from Rafael Moreno Rodríguez, the varnisher Javier Campos and many others. He also assisted Stephen Hill in teaching his guitar making course in 2022 and in May 2025.

Recognition

Brian has been featured in an article in Acoustic Guitar magazine, and in videos by Brandon Acker after building him an homage to Torres’ FE-13. He also built the first-prize guitar for the High School Classical Guitar Competition held in association with the Long Island Guitar Festival. GSI is proud to be Brian’s only dealer in the USA.