Next to his professional guitar career Baltazar developed a strong interest in guitar building. Over the years he gained excellent guitar making skills and constructed a variety of guitars under the pseudonym " Victoriano Santos"

Nice to know that next to his Fleta 1976 he used to play a variety of concerts on his own  self made guitar, Victoriano Santos - La Estrella. The history of this guitar goes back to 1933. At that time Carlos Gardel organised yearly concerts where Carlos gave away one guitar made by La Casa de Núñez de Buenos Aires. His father Pablo Mauro Benitez Olivares and his sister Juana visited one of these concerts and they actually won the guitar! The sound hole  of this guitar had a very characteristic form of an octagon made of nacre.  It was the guitar on which Baltazar played his first notes after his father passed away in 1953. Years later he reincorporated the sound hole of the guitar to build his own concert guitar,  La Estrella.  This guitar became his concert guitar, next to the Fleta, he used in many performances.

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Another interesting  insight  is that over the years Baltazar studied and restored a large number of classical guitars of a variety of well established brands. He carefully mapped out all the details of the construction per guitar which resulted in 12 excellent and detailed guitar plans. These plans have been recently digitalized and are now available for the wider audience as Baltazar would have wanted to pass on this treasure to the new generation of guitar builders. 

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If you would like to know more please send an inquiry to: info@baltazarbenitez.com

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