To be the recipient of a signature guitar is a great honour; to have signature guitars from two different makers might be considered greedy – but I’m certainly not complaining.

In June I played a batch of concerts in Leeds with my good mate Gordon Giltrap and the guitar maker Manuel Rodriguez III happened to be there. As we hadn’t seen each other for (he estimated) around 25 years it was wonderful to see him again after such a long time. Almost straight away Manuel offered to make me a signature guitar. It will be a lattice-braced instrument with the option of both spruce and cedar soundboards. As I’ve never owned a cedar instrument it will be particularly interesting to see how this one has turned out as I’ll be playing and recording a fair amount of Spanish music next year.

The guitars will be ready at the beginning of November. Siân and I will be visiting Manuel’s workshops in Madrid to collect the instrument then, and to see the exhibition related to the Rodriguez 106th anniversary.

There will be more information about the instrument later in the year.