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Edmund Blöchinger 
Born in a small town 30 miles outside of Munich, Edmund Blöchinger grew up with a love of both the aural and the visual qualities of music. Wandering through town with his mother, he would become transfixed by not only the sound, but also the shapes of the fine classical guitars hanging in the windows of music stores. The seeds for his passion were also sown at an early age via his grandfather, a retired forest master who instilled in him a love of the natural and vibrant qualities of the woods from which he would eventually craft his own instruments. His grandfather taught him how to choose a perfect tree from the spruce forests that surrounded his home, and to this day Edmund still selects the wood for his guitar tops and cuts the trees himself.
 Owing much to his grandfather’s inspiration, Edmund first apprenticed as a cabinetmaker but dreamt of becoming a luthier. In 1982 he began an apprenticeship in a guitar workshop near his home. A critical moment in his growth as a luthier came in 1987, when he discovered the José L. Romanillos book “Antonio de Torres: Guitar Maker--His Life and Work”. The full impact of this event was realized two years later when he participated in the Romanillos master class in Cordoba, Spain. Through Romanillos, Blöchinger was introduced to the old building techniques and aesthetic sensibilities of the great traditional masters, stemming from Torres.
Since the mid 90’s, Blöchinger’s close association with the Romero family has been another driving force in defining his style. The Torres/Romanillos foundation gave him the tools to build a guitar using traditional methods to attain great warmth and depth to the note, while maintaining a great amount of clarity and balance. In building for the Romeros, his guitars have developed a bigger concert sound with quicker response and sharper focus. The shape of the fingerboard, fretting and the relief in the neck are all designed in order get the action lower without diminishing the tension at the bridge – a quality that Pepe Romero is looking for in his best instruments.
Edmund is also proud to have built a smaller, “Llobet style” guitar with tornavoz for Pepe; this instrument has been one of Pepe’s primary concert guitars for the past two years. His guitars are also played by Celin and Angel Romero; his most recent guitar—his first cedar top—was custom built at Angel’s request. And Edmund was honored to have recently restored Pepe’s 1937 Hauser I guitar. Edmund Blochinger uses primarily hand-split Alpine spruce and the highest grade Brazilian rosewood (and occasionally maple) for the backs and sides. What really distinguishes his guitars, however, is that “Each one of them is built with love.” And although it is natural to affiliate fine concert guitars with their country of origin or influence, he is proud to define his instruments as “universal.” They are not limited by borders or language.
 In the end, all of Edmund Blöchinger’s guitars are a culmination of his own experience and understanding of sound and of the tonal possibilities of wood. Although he works alone and produces just 10 handmade instruments per year, GSI is proud to be the only dealer of Edmund Blöchinger guitars in the world.
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