Australia’s CutCommon bills itself as a magazine about “The New Generation of Classical Music.” A couple of months ago they published a fascinating article about Greg Smallman, the highly respected and influential guitar maker whose instruments have been played by the likes of John Williams, Xuefei Yang, Craig Ogden, Ben Verdery, Judicaël Perroy, Miloš Karadaglic, Tim Kain, Gabriel Bianco, and, not coincidentally, the author of the article, Matt Withers, whose solo work and undertakings with the Australia’s wonderful Guitar Trek quartet have been covered in the pages of Classical Guitar. Matt has spent much time with Smallman and also given considerable thought to what makes Smallman’s guitars so special, as he describes in the article, which we happily link to below.
Also, we think you’ll like the little YouTube mini-documentary below, in which John Williams meets with Smallman in Australia, plus a performance video with Olivia Chiang playing Bach on a 1992 Smallman! —Blair Jackson
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