Born in Vila Nova de Gaia, Manuel Amorim discovered his passion for musical instruments early on: as a child he dismantled his father’s banjo to understand how it was made. This fascination led him to study the construction of traditional instruments in Coimbra and to be an apprentice of Master Fernando Meireles.
Luthier for over 25 years, he has been dedicated to the construction and repair of chordophones, from Portuguese and classical guitars to violas campaniças. His career was marked in 2001, when, as part of the European Capital of Culture, he built, in Porto, the largest Portuguese guitar in the world, installed in Largo da Sé – a feat that appears in the Guinesse Book of Records.
Years later he moved to the Algarve, where he opened a workshop and gave music lessons. In 2018 he settled in Loulé, where he founded the Cordophone Workshop with the support of the Loulé Criativo project.
For Manuel, each instrument is a challenge: construction can take months and the result is only revealed when the strings are finally placed.
Today, he is proud to see guitars made by him traveling the world, always with the aim of valuing the past, perfecting techniques and projecting tradition into the future.
