GUITARS INTERNATIONAL

African blackwood body, spr./Nomex/ced. soundboard

New 2016

Overview: Master guitar maker Gernot Wagner has received enormous international acclaim over the years for his revolutionary idea to employ Nomex technology in doubletop guitar construction. (Wagner's idea was first adopted and popularized by his friend and colleague, Matthias Dammann, who built the first doubletop guitar using this unique technology). See "Innovative Guitar Designs" in the March 2012 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine (pages 3 and 4 in the online article) for further information about Gernot Wagner's ground breaking contribution to double top technology.

We were honored that Gernot Wagner chose our company, Guitars International, to be the first dealer to import into the U.S.A. one of his early double top guitars with a Nomex core. We displayed this guitar at the 1997 Guitar Foundation of America Festival in La Jolla, California. Gernot Wagner joined us at that G.F.A. Festival and was greatly gratified, as were we, to witness the musical sensation his double top guitar created. We sold that revelatory guitar within an hour of its unveiling. Today, as Gernot Wagner's exclusive North American dealer, we are proud to observe that Gernot Wagner's magnificent sounding, much sought after, very powerful, meticulously crafted double top classical guitars represent a significant bench mark against which all innovative twenty-first century classical guitars must be judged.

Jason Vieaux; José Manuel Dapena; and Susana Prieto and Alexis Muzurakis of Duo Melis are just five of the internationally acclaimed concert artists choosing to perform and record with Gernot Wagner double top (sometimes referred to as sandwich top or composite top) classical guitars. View a video of classical guitarist Jason Vieaux performing on his spruce/cedar double top Gernot Wagner guitar. View a video of Miriam Rodriguez Brullova performing on her cedar/cedar Wagner double top guitar. View a video of José Manuel Dapena performing on his cedar/cedar Wagner guitar. And view a video of Duo Melis performing on their cedar/cedar Gernot Wagner double top classical guitars. Most recently Bill Kanengiser has been performing on his Gernot Wagner double top guitar.

Capable of projecting to the back of the most challenging concert hall, we believe Gernot Wagner's most recent double top guitars to be the most sonically beautiful, most musically flexible, most natural sounding of the latest generation of double top guitars: lush, round, clear, well balanced sound throughout all registers, smooth creamy tonal transition from note to note, quick response, broad color palette, excellent separation, sustain, depth and density of sound. Gernot Wagner's concert guitars are an excellent choice for concerto and related ensemble work where electronic amplification is either artistically undesirable or impracticable.

In sum, Gernot Wagner's double top classical guitars represent a major contribution both to refined music making and the art of lutherie in general. No wonder one of our delighted customers proclaimed his new Gernot Wagner double top classical guitar to be "the golden fleece of concert guitars." 

Guitars International has represented Gernot Wagner in North America since 1995. Though Gernot Wagner's waiting list is extensive, Guitars International, Gernot Wagner's exclusive North American dealer, is honored to be able to offer from time to time a rare new example of this consummate artist's work. (Learn more about this classical guitar maker).

See also the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar magazine, pp 48-50, for an interview with master guitar maker Gernot Wagner about his groundbreaking work.