The Czech guitar manufacturer Furch Guitars has been growing steadily since the Velvet Revolution and its instruments are played by many famous musicians. Now the company has announced that it plans a big expansion in the United States, specifically to Nashville, the city many call the country music capital of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not just Czech stars Aneta Langerov\u00e1 and David Koller that use Furch Guitars, but internationally renowned musicians such as Al Di Meiola, Suzanne Vega and Per Gessle have entrusted their tone to the South Moravian guitar maker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike such guitar makes as Fender or Gibson, Furch is a relatively new manufacturer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Petr Furch, who currently leads the company, says that it was his father\u2019s search for a good quality instrument during the time of normalisation era mass production that was the spark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy father started already in the 1970s, when he made a banjo for himself. He was a banjo player. It was mainly the lack of good quality instruments which drove him to make one.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n At first Mr. Furch Sr. made instruments for a narrow inner circle, but as the Communist ban on private companies became more lax in the late-1980s, he began to sell his guitars publicly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once capitalism returned, the business was free to really take off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter the revolution it was possible to make our business official. My father hired the first people, got a production facility and from that point on we have grown continuously every year. However, the biggest momentum has come in the past five or six years, after we secured new markets, which allowed us to make bigger steps every year.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Furch Guitars has profited much from foreign markets. The manufacturer, which has revenue of USD 4 million dollars a year, earns around 90 percent of its profits from exports, mainly into Germany, Scandinavia and Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Furch is looking to get a stronger foothold on the other side of the Atlantic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Furch Guitars has already been selling instruments in America since 2003, through a deal with the Canadian distributor Stonebridge Guitars International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Petr Furch says that his business now plans to double its number of local dealers and set up a base of operations in Nashville, Tennessee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n