Born from a partnership between legendary guitar luthier Dennis Fano (Fano & Novo) and Eastwood Guitars, Rivolta are the newest and one of the most exciting classical guitar brands to arrive at Colemans Music.
Dennis Fano – working on a custom guitar.
Pennsylvania native, Fano got his start in the Music Industry repairing guitars at Matt Umanov Guitars in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where he worked until 2001, when he decided to pursue guitar building full-time.
In his first venture; “Fano Guitars” in Pennsylvania, he repaired and modified bass guitars. with one of the first models he modified, his Fender Jazz Bass and then a Harmony bass. Since those days Dennis Fano has acquired an almost renown reputation for building boutique guitars. His flagship model was the Alt de Facto guitar line-up.
In 2009 Dennis sold Fano Guitars to PBG (Premier Builders Guild). He then went on to become an employee of that company, working on prototypes and one-offs.
He worked with PBG until 2014 when he left and started Novo Guitars.
This time Dennis moved his workshop from Pennsylvania to Nashville, Tennessee. He hired Matthew Timmons, formerly of Lollar pickups as the shop’s general manager.
Fano’s early employment years spent at Matt Umanov Guitars.
After successfully establishing the Novo brand, he set his sights on a more affordable guitar line and thus Rivolta was conceived under a partnership with Mike Robinson of Eastwood Guitars.
One of Fano’s gorgeous Novo models.
‘Novo’ took its name from the Latin novus, which means “new “– and Fano’s Eastwood-made electrics are branded with a name with a similar inspiration behind it, as Dennis explains: “Rivolta is the Italian word for ‘revolt’. The plan for Rivolta is to do fresh new takes on some of my earlier work”.
Just some of the amazing Rivolta models.
Rivolta guitars offer everything Fano is famous for, offset styles that take inspiration from guitar brands like Rickenbacker and Gibson. My personal favourite is the “Combinata”. The Combinata was the first model in the Rivolta lineup. Fans of Dennis Fano’s previous guitars and guitarists that love the Rickenbacker’s 1950s output will find these models familiar.
“Combinata” is Italian for ‘combination’ and this guitar is a combination of some Fano’s new ideas while leaning on his RB6 design from years ago.
You can find an expansive range of Rivolta Guitars at Colemans Music.
