Curriculum

Fernando Lima

I was born 1962 in Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal and I showed interest in music and art since very early. I have studied Classic Guitar with Prof. José Pina, Music professor at Universidade do Porto.

Since my childhood my love for wood and handcraft was visible in the precise manual skills I demonstrated.

I have studied the construction of classic guitars with Maestro António Tavares from 1976 to 1979. During my studies at Oporto, I also began restoring and building bow intruments.

This passion for the creation of bow instruments was the reason why I moved to Cremona in order to study and learn the best techniques following the tradition of the great masters from Cremona which I deeply appreciate.

At the moment I live and work in Cremona, being mostly inspired by the models created by Stradivarius and Guarnieri "Del Gesu".

My varnish is exceptionally transparent and possesses great depth with intense golden orange shades. I produce my own varnish, using only the best natural components.

For these and other reasons, such as sound, musicians from all parts of the world, give me immense pleasure by playing my instruments.

It is gratifying to work together with these musicians and at the same time optimize the instrument.

I constantly try to improve my research in order to approach the highest level of quality which has made Stradivari and Guarneri "Del Gesu" the greatest luthiers of the past.

The most mentioned attributes of my intruments are the ease of play as well as a strong sound full of harmonics.

I only build with wood of excellent quality, aged naturally and chosen one by one by myself.

I dedicate myself to building new instruments as well as making copies of old instruments. I continue to build my classical guitar with brazilian rosewood with 45 years of natural maturation.