My Biography
I was born in 1964 in a small village on the edge of the Eifel. Grown up in a musical environment, I began to play the guitar at the age of 12 self-taught. As a 14-year-old followed the first lessons on the classical guitar. The hitherto unimagined tonal and polyphonic possibilities of the instrument immediately captivated me.
After 3 years of intensive teaching followed the change to Aachen to Harald Nicoll. This confronted me for the first time with the opportunity to study guitar. After a 6-year intensive preparation time, also in theoretical subjects such as harmony, composition, ear training and morphology, then completed after civil service in 1986, the entrance examination at the Consevatorium Maastricht for classical guitar with minor subject jazz guitar. During this time I completed masterclasses with D. Russel and Costas Cotsiolis. After completing the training then followed a postgraduate studies at the Royal Conservatory of Amsterdam. Since the div. Teaching at various music and general education schools.
During this time, in 1987, I had first contact with Antonio Marien in Granada, where I ordered an instrument. The first workshop visit gave rise to the idea for the first time to deal with the guitar building. However, this was only put into practice in 1994, after my studies in Amsterdamm with the simplest means I built my first guitar in 1995 with the help of a book by I. Sloane. The result actually looked like a guitar. Other similarities with a high-quality concert instrument were not available.
Only through the contact to the Italian luthier Camillo Perella, I received several times in the context of an instrument order, the possibility to stay for several days in his workshop. Here, for the first time, I got an insight into a professional manufacturing process. Camillo readily provided information, explained, sketched, and showed as much as he could. His later visits to Germany, in my meanwhile existing small workshop, proved to be extremely instructive and effective.
Another step towards guitar making was certainly the annual construction courses for historical plucked instruments on the Hessian Mosenberg. There, in 2 weeks of intensive courses, historical instruments such as baroque guitars, lutes, cisterns and (though slightly ruffling) concert guitars and steel strings guitars were reconstructed according to historical models.
Over the years, this gathering of like-minded people brought together an enormous amount of knowledge and information that was otherwise difficult to access. It was just the logical consequence that made this course many participants a professional career. From 1995 to 2005, the Mosenberg courses were for me an almost endless source of information and inspiration.
This was not least due to the tireless commitment and the enormous historical knowledge of Wolfgang Meyer, who started these courses in the 80s. Here again a very special thanks to Wolfgang. Unfortunately, the course was canceled in 2005 due to lack of state funds Ersatzlos.
But things took off from there. The first commissioned works were completed. First classical guitars, then romantic guitars and steel strings guitars.
At the same time, the number of repairs increased, as I had meanwhile housed my workshop in an old dairy that was set up as a cultural center or rehearsal room for the local music scene. After the sale of the building I am now, with a heavy heart, since 2011 in my new workshop near the center of Düren.
Achim Hellenthal
