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Guitar Bazaar
Bigger than ever, the 2005 Healdsburg Guitar Festival presented hundreds of dream guitars, concerts by master guitarists, and workshops for amateurs and future virtuosos alike.

By Teja Gerken

The main hall at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival.

In what has become a tradition observed every other August, luthiers and guitarists descended on northern California last summer for the Healdsburg Guitar Festival. Having outgrown the small town that gave the festival its name, the festival is now held a few miles south, in Santa Rosa, at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.

Fred Carlson's 38-string Harp-Sympitar.

With more than 130 luthiers displaying their handmade guitars (as well as a few mandolins, bouzoukis, basses, and miscellaneous stringed oddities), the 2005 festival was the largest and most successful yet. Add cool workshops (by such guitarists as Muriel Anderson, Steve Baughman, Peppino D’Agostino, Peter Lang, Gyan Riley, and yours truly), daytime concerts featuring guitars made by exhibiting luthiers, and evening concerts (by the likes of Dan Crary, Beppe Gambetta, Franco Morone, Todd Hallawell, and the John Jorgenson Quintet), and the result was a heavenly weekend for acoustic-guitar connoisseurs.

Matthew Mustapick shows off his Malaysian blackwood nylon-string.

The guitar exhibition proved how incredibly advanced and elegant custom lutherie has gotten on the whole. This was evidenced not just by “star” luthiers such as Linda Manzer, Kevin Ryan, and Jeff Traugott, but also by the many new-generation builders. Even with hundreds of fine guitars squeezed into one place, instruments made by first-time exhibitors such as Matt Mustapick, Rod Schenk, Eric Poulsen, Stephen Stratton, and Paul Woolson drew crowds of curious, appreciative guitarists.

Sheldon Schwartz with his latest creation.

Although conventional minijumbos designed for fingerstylists were the most popular style, several other guitars stood out. Sheldon Schwartz showed a lattice-braced flattop with an offset soundhole and a long, 26-inch scale; Charles Fox brought three of his radical Ergo guitars (see Luthier’s Workbench in the November 2005 AG); James Watts’ traditional-looking steel-strings had sandwich tops; Shelley Park had a Howe-Orme–inspired guitar with a cylindrical top; and Moonstone Guitars displayed the biggest baritone of the show with a beyond-jumbo size body. Although outnumbered by steel-strings, classical guitars were well represented by luthiers Richard Prenkert, Randy Reynolds, Bruce F. Wood, and Kenny Hill, while archtops by makers Steve Grimes, Michael Lewis, Ted Megas, and Tom Ribbecke kept attending jazz cats swinging.

Alex de Grassi checks out a guitar as luthier Bruce Sexauer (left) looks on.

With custom lutherie an increasingly international phenomenon, Healdsburg was also graced by guitar makers from Argentina (Diego Huerga), France (Pierre Lamour, Philippe Landry), Italy (Valentino Lamorte), and New Zealand (Patrick Burgin and Laurie Williams). And while Beyond the Trees founder Fred Carlson may live just down the freeway in Santa Cruz, California, his instruments seem to originate in some other galaxy. In addition to his 18-string Star Traveler, Carlson displayed his new 38-string Harp-Sympitar. Starting with the general outline of a harp guitar, the Harp-Sympitar includes extra bass strings, a harp across the body’s lower bout, and sympathetic strings inside a hollow neck.

Franco Morone performs at an evening concert.

With excellent attendance on all three days, the Healdsburg Guitar Festival confirmed its status as one of the premier events of its kind. Hats off to both Luthier’s Mercantile—for organizing the festival—and the participating builders and artists. They all deserve a round of applause for elevating the art and awareness of our beloved instrument.

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This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, Issue #157

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