Tania Spalt
Tania Spalt is one of the three women who made the first edition of The Holy Grail Guitar Show possible.
Tania held the whole show package together - keeping contact with all exhibitors, overseeing all symposium and show content, making sure deadlines weren’t missed, cooperating with the show site and much more. Countless working hours, working as a team and as individuals. Thank you Emma, Kora and Tania - this show would not exist without the three of you. Hats off to the EGB Super Trio!
Emma Elftorp
Emma is one of the three women who made the first edition of The Holy Grail Guitar Show possible.
Emma created the show website from scratch, operated the numerous webforms and spreadsheets needed for keeping all the invaluable data safely together, streamlining the administrative work when dealing with large amount of exhibitors, affiliates and more.
Countless working hours, working as a team and as individuals. Thank you Emma, Kora and Tania - this show would not exist without the three of you. Hats off to the EGB Super Trio!
Emma is one of the luthiers at Ruokangas Guitars in Finland.
Kora Jünger
Kora is one of the three women who made the first edition of The Holy Grail Guitar Show possible.
Kora was not only responsible for coordinating the graphics design of the show, but also the catalogue content and layout, social media campaigns on various platforms, merchandise concept and more.
Countless working hours, working as a team and as individuals. Thank you Emma, Kora and Tania - this show would not exist without the three of you. Hats off to the EGB Super Trio!
Kora is designer at nd co-owner of Deimel Guitarworks in Germany.
William 'Grit' Laskin
This man is a living legend among guitar makers. He is also the perfect rolemodel for our young association, showing with countless examples that it is indeed possible to change the world. A few highlights: Grit is a co-founder and former President of A.S.I.A. (the association of stringed instrument artisans). He has received Canada’s prestigious Saidye Bronfman Award For Excellence - the first and only instrument maker to be so honored. Grit is also an Elected Fellow of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. He is included in "Who is Who in Canada" as well as "Encyclopedia of Music in Canada”. In 2012 Grit was named to the Order Of Canada - Canada's highest civilian honor! Grit is also a renown musician/songwriter/singer. For over 40 years he's been a multi-instrumentalist performer. As this wasn’t enough, Grit went on and founded a record company in 1996. Today Borealis Records, Canada's first national Folk music label, represents more than 55 acts and has a catalogue of 130 releases. Grit created the Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2005. He is one of the coordinators of The Woods Music And Dance Camp, too. Grit also sits on the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) Board of Directors, and on the Ontario Government’s Music Advisory Committee. He is also an author, who has published amongst other titles not less than the first ever book in North America (1987) to document the contemporary makers: The World Of Musical Instrument Makers; A Guided Tour. And one more important thing - in 2014 Grit became one of the first honorary members of The European Guitar Builders association! Thank you Grit for accepting our invitation - this is a great great honor for us!
Dieter Roesberg
Dieter is the long time editor-in-chief of Gitarre & Bass. Gitarre & Bass is a familiar name for most professional luthiers operating in the German speaking part of Europe.
Dieter and his magazine have supported the craft of luthiers since long ago, understanding the name of the game.
Our business consists of a large number of very small companies, and none of them plays a significant role in the format of advertising income for any media. Dieter has always however appreciated the journalistic value of what the small builders bring to the scene - an act of inspiration, pool of creativity and even a flashing glimpse to the future, at times. Now, as the community of luthiers celebrates the birth of the first international guitar show ever held in Europe, dedicated solely to the hand made guitar, we salute Dieter by inviting him as an honorary member of EGB. Welcome aboard, Dieter!
The European Guitar Builders association awarded its' first honorary members at The Holy Grail Guitar Show 2014 Luthiers Dinner on Friday, November 14, 2014.
Andy Manson
On the EGB symposium, during the Luthiers' Dinner, Andy Manson, one of the EGB's Old Hands has been bestowed the honor of becoming Honorary Member of the EGB.
Andy Manson has been building acoustic instruments since 1967. His work is firmly based in the classic methods, using hand tools wherever possible, and nowadays exclusively hide glue. He also in recent years uses natural oil finishes. The scope of his building includes flat top, arch top and Macaferri style guitars, the carved top mandolin family, Celtic bouzoukis, and various hybrid and multi necked instruments. Andy is now located in Portugal, sharing his workshop with his stepson Seth Baccus, who is proving to be a luthier of great talent.
"Building guitars is for me a way of life. I enjoy the particular disciplines; design, relationship with the materials, the tools, and of course ultimately the music. It is a very broad field, thoroughly dependent upon integrity in every way. A world where knowledge and intuition are inseparable. Sometimes it’s inspirational to hear music in the workshop, I also like to listen to the sound of the knife carving a heel, the chisel paring down a strut, the plane shooting a joint, a pencil drawing a line."
The European Guitar Builders association awarded Andy his honorary membership at The Holy Grail Guitar Show 2015 Luthiers Dinner on Friday, October 30th, 2015.
Rauno Nieminen
To honor his lifetime achievement as a guitar making teacher and luthier, we are proud to induct Rauno Nieminen as an honorary member to the EGB. Rauno’s sharing and caring approach towards our beloved profession, his successful efforts in making Finnish lutherie a force to be reckoned with in the guitar world, set an admirable example for the luthiers of Europe and elsewhere. We salute Rauno, and wish him many more productive and satisfying years in his work.
Rauno started making musical instruments in the late 1970’s. Today he has a Master’s Degree in lutherie, as well as a Doctor’s Degree in musicology. His track record is breathtaking, entwining in countless ways with our shared love - the guitar. The true tour de force among Rauno’s many achievements however is his remarkable career as the father of luthier education in Finland. Rauno’s legacy will certainly live on, as there are today over 150 professional luthiers in Finland - the vast majority of them former graduates from the Ikaalinen College of Arts and Crafts, Lutherie Department, founded by Rauno Nieminen in 1984.
The European Guitar Builders association awarded Rauno his honorary membership at The Holy Grail Guitar Show 2016 Luthiers Dinner on Friday, October 7th, 2016.
Christian Stoll
Christian started to learn about guitar making at the Hopf factory back in 1978. It was not an easy experience, which might have scared less persistent people off - at the time apprentices were treated not much better than slave labor on the factory floor. But he eventually managed to receive his master's certificate and in 1983 he opened his own business. Starting small and slowly expanding over the years, he decided to focus on acoustic instruments.
Developing his own bracing, working on acoustic bass models, and designing lightweight steel string guitars, Christian has established himself as unique and innovative builder, all the while training apprentices and writing articles on various guitar-related topics for a major German magazine. He has also been involved in helping with the EGB, and is a successful marathon runner!
The European Guitar Builders association awarded Christian his honorary membership at The Holy Grail Guitar Show 2018 Luthiers Dinner on Friday, May 4th, 2018.
Chris Larkin (January 5th 1949 - August 3rd 2018)
With no woodworking experience Chris built his first solid body guitar in 1977. He used it playing in a band for a year when somebody asked to buy it after a gig. So he made another which sold in a similar way…. and another. And so on until by 1983 by which time he was fully involved with woodworking (guitars/furniture 50:50) and decided he had to look for a bigger market for the guitars and dropped the furniture making which had subsidised the guitar making. He began at a time when there was very little information on guitar making available, very few people you could ask and definitely no internet. This meant he had to figure out everything for himself by trial and error. While this is a slow way of learning it does instil both an originality in the way one works and a great depth of understanding.
Chris makes guitar family instruments from solid body to archtop jazzers, everything in between and beyond! Almost everything is hand-made to order. To date almost 800 instruments have been made by him and sold all over the world.
Chris has always approached his work in an ethical way and from the start tried to use local Irish woods where possible - long before The Local Wood Challenge was thought of! In 2014 he became involved in the Leonardo Guitar Research Project in which research was conducted into the use of non-tropical woods in guitar making, a subject close to his heart. He threw himself into this with great enthusiasm and dedication, and as part of this project gave unforgettable work experience to young lutherie students.
The European Guitar Builders association awarded Christian his honorary membership at The Holy Grail Guitar Show 2018 Luthiers Dinner on Friday, May 4th, 2018. With great sadness we learned about Chris' passing and our community mourns this very talented guitar builder, wonderful friend and mentor and overall great guy!