Duo Montes - Kircher

Alfonso Montes was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, in 1955. Early involvement with folk music eventually developed into formal study with Leopoldo Igarza in Caracas. In 1976 he won a scholarship from the Venezuelan Cultural Council which enabled him to study in London with John Duarte (1976- 82), during which time he obtained the Performance Diploma of the Royal College of Music. Upon returning to Venezuela he became a dominant influence in guitar affairs and, among various posts, was appointed as the first Lecturer in Guitar at the University School of Music (I. U. D. E. M).

Irina Kircher (Stuttgart 1966) began to play the guitar at the age of six. Three years later was accepted as a special student at the "Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst" where she studied with Prof. Dr. Mario Sicca. As early as ten years old Irina captured the first of several prestigious guitar prices, winning the German "Young Musician of the Year" award in 1976, a feat she then reqiated at the next occasion of this competition. In 1983 she moved to Caracas where she studied for one year with Maestro Antonio Lauro.

What is what guitarrist call "The Montes-Kircher sound "? They are the first and only professional guitar duo using the innovative creation from Master guitar maker Walter J. Vogt, that is a guitar that is tunable exactly to tempered scale: it remains of course tunable to any other desired intervals with equal accuracy. Ever since guitars have been built, numerous attempts to overcome the inaccuracies of the traditional scaling by means of computation and fretboard modifications have been made and failed. Inaccuracies of current tuning arise from four factors: the compromise of fixed fret positions, inhomogenities of the strings, the instrument and the way of playing. Imperfections in strings may be reduce but hardly eliminated. It remained to find a solution via the first factor, the frets. Walter Vogt succeded in designing a fret board on which all 110 - 120 semitones can be set individually. Just before he died in 1990 he accomplished a perfected system for accurate tempered tuning. It becomes immedialtly audible that instruments thus accurately tuned to tempered scale sound richer and holding a sound longer than those with standard scaling and fixed trets. This combined with the artistry of Irina and Alfonso is what makes the magic "The Montes- Kircher sound "?.