I know that I have probably mentioned it several times in this blog, but one of my biggest guitar building heroes is José Romanillos. While we were visiting friends in Spain and France over the last two weeks, I had the incredibly good fortune to be able to meet with him and his wife Marian Harris Winspear.
We saw the collection of instruments, as well as the workbench and tools of Santos Hernandez at the museum that they have curated in Sigüenza. We were invited to their home and workshop where he showed some of his tools, jigs and, perhaps most excitingly, his most recently completed guitar from roughly four years ago. It was incredibly beautiful. I was also able to show him one of my own guitars of which he was very generous to say nice things about.
They two of them have dedicated so much of their lives to the classical guitar and have put an insane amount of work and research into the biography of Antonio de Torres, the dictionary of Spanish musical instrument makers and the newest book on building a Spanish guitar. I was previously unaware, but Marian also does an invaluable amount of the editing, research and organizing, which I suppose makes sense when consider the scope of some of the projects they have undertaken.
I've included a handful of photos of the museum, shop and the city.
