2020 Kenny Hill "Torres" SP/IN

This 2020 Kenny Hill "Torres" is a smaller-bodied classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, after the Sevilla guitars of Antonio de Torres – heard in Villa-Lobos' "Chôros No. 1" by Aleia González Gulino on this page.

Kenny Hill's Torres Model

Kenny based this guitar on Torres' first-epoch period, when the "father of the modern guitar" was working in Sevilla and establishing the design principles that set the standard for nearly every maker after him. Being smaller bodied, it has the classic 7-fan Torres bracing and a beautiful, more compact body in all dimensions, including the string length.

Rosette and Top

An elegant rosette of checkerboard mosaic, flanked by green herringbone, is matched in the soundboard purflings, and the spruce top has subtle bear-claw markings and cross-grain "aguas" from its high-grade quartersawn cut.

Sound and Condition

A strong sound, with singing highs and solid basses – ideal for players who want a smaller instrument without giving up a full concert sound. Although second-hand, it is in excellent condition with minimal playing wear in the finish.

Kenny Hill: Guitarist and Guitar Maker

Kenny Hill was born in San Jose, California, and is a performing guitarist and composer as well as a guitar maker. Largely self-taught, he began building guitars professionally in the 1970s in Santa Barbara. In the 1980s he set guitar making aside to raise his four children – though he never stopped performing – and in 1989 he returned to the workbench with copies of historic instruments by Torres, Fleta, Hauser, Rodríguez and Panormo: the beginning of his "Master Series".

From Soledad and Paracho to the Santa Cruz Mountains

In 1993 a grant allowed Kenny to set up a guitar-building shop at Soledad State Prison in California. Two years later he traveled to Paracho, Mexico, as a writer for Acoustic Guitar magazine, to cover a master class led by José Luis Romanillos, and in 1996 he established a workshop there, spending five years building a market for Paracho's guitars. Out of this work grew workshops in California, Mexico and China: his "New World" guitars are made in Guangzhou, China, in a factory of which he is a founding shareholder, and he is designer emeritus and a long-time consultant for Cordoba Guitars.

Kenny's own Signature and Performance models – with double tops, lattice bracing and sound ports – are built by hand in his workshop in Ben Lomond, in the mountains near Santa Cruz, California, by a team of about six craftsmen that includes his son and son-in-law. In 2015 the Guitar Foundation of America honored him with its Industry Leadership Award.

Kenny Hill Guitars at GSI

Many Kenny Hill guitars have passed through our doors, from his Master Series replicas of the great historical makers to his modern Signature and Performance models.