Jonathan Ross Parkin has established himself as a sensitive and versatile musician of the highest quality, and has performed in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Palau les Arts (Valencia), The Barbican and L' Auditori (Barcelona). 

Jonathan’s expressive, colourful and virtuosic playing has brought him success at over fifteen major international competitions including Certamen Llobet, the London International Guitar Competition, Concurso Cuidad de Elche, and Ivor Mariants award.

Currently based in Valencia, Jonathan has recorded extensively with JSM Records and is a professor at both the Escuela Superior de Música Alto Rendimiento (ESMAR) and at the Conservatorio Professional Ignacio Monzonís.

Jonathan  is also the artistic director of ‘Jornades Socarrades de Guitarra’.

Jonathan plays a 2017 Daniele Chiesa guitar.

Nick Branwell has built a reputation as a fine maker of Torres-inspired guitars, and now also experiments with other designs. His fine eye for detail and long experience as a guitar player ensure that he achieves a great sound and feel in his sought-after instruments.

Nick will explain the making of the guitar top from beginning to end - selecting spruce or cedar, joining the book-matched plates, making and fitting the rosette, and then on to the all-important thinning of the top, bracing designs - basically about strength and flexibility. Finally Nick will look at finishing materials - French polish, lacquer, polyester. 

After fifty years of playing all kinds of guitars, expensive ones, cheap ones, Nick knows how a guitar can or should sound.

Nick studied guitar-making with Nick Pyle, Pete Howlett, Mike Hobbs, Richard Osborne and with Pablo Requena in Malaga. All of these teachers have different methods, and Nick has taken something from each of them.

Nick uses hand tools as much as possible and works freehand wherever possible. His first guitars were made almost entirely with hand tools, but Nick also uses power tools when necessary.

Paul will play extracts from well-known guitar repertoire to demonstrate a range of guitars. He discusses the differences between factory-made, artisan-built and luthier-crafted guitars - essential information for players of all levels.

Paul Gregory started playing guitar at the age of 10. Later he also studied cello and composition in London. He gave his Wigmore Hall debut when 19. Three years later he won the Andres Segovia International Competition in Spain. 

Paul has made BBC Radio 3 programmes, including live broadcasts from the NTL Studio in Belfast, the Wigmore Hall and from Broadcasting House. Paul has been a visiting professor to the Royal Irish Academy and for ten years Chief External Examiner at the Scottish Conservatoire. More recently he has been invited to give masterclasses at RCM and Trinity Laban.

Locally, Paul is a founder member to New Music Brighton and the Lunchtime Concerts at the Chapel Royal Brighton. In 2002 he set up a guitar distribution company Maestoso Music, providing many of the best music shops with carefully selected instruments.

‘A model of polish and accuracy’ The Strad