2020 Christian Koehn SP/IN

German luthier Christian Koehn was born in 1976. He attended the guitar making and violin making School in New Ark, England where he graduated with distinction. In 2007, together with his wife, Thilde van Norel who is a violin maker, Christian opened a workshop in his hometown of Berlin. Christian is one of the natives in the eclectic group of luthiers who call themselves the "Berlin Luthiers" - a group of colleagues and friends who find their collective to be a fertile ground for mutual inspiration and the genuine exchange of experience and insights into their shared craft. To us, the most remarkable aspect of this group is the diversity of styles each of the makers exhibits. In Christian's case, his very personal building style has been based on a the traditional instruments from many of the great historical Spanish makers as well as the French school focused on Daniel Friederich and Robert Bouchet. On top of this more traditional base, Christian also integrates modern techniques, including his take on double-tops, of which this guitar is an example. For this instrument, his top is Alpine spruce from 1989 (which Christian reminds us is the year the Berlin wall fell, a nice symbolic detail) on both the exterior and interior with balsa core. For the back, Christian used three pieces of Indian rosewood (which he tells us is old wood from the 1970s, dark, fine and straight grained) and mahogany for the neck. The head veneer, fingerboard and bindings are made from ebony. The sound is very colorful with a lot of warmth, strong fundamentals to every note and plenty of power, evenly distributed across all registers. We're very impressed with this instrument and are excited to have this "Berlin Luthier" join the GSI roster, as we are his exclusive US agents.