2013 Annette Stephany SP/MP

A 2013 classical guitar by Annette Stephany, with a spruce top and flamed maple back and sides – her 31st instrument, finished on her 31st birthday, and the first guitar we had from her.

In the video above, George Sakellariou plays Bach's Toccata on this guitar.

A Special Anniversary

The date also marked Annette's tenth year as a guitar maker, so this instrument is a special one.

A Maple Ramírez

It is a lightly modified version of the 1910 Manuel Ramírez owned by Lorenzo Frignani, with the original's 7+2 symmetrical bracing; where the original is rosewood, Annette chose beautiful flamed maple. The sound is natural and earthy, with great clarity between voices and surprising volume.

Our introduction of Annette Stephany

Annette Stephany: From Mittenwald to Schweinfurt

Annette Stephany (born 1982) is a German classical guitar maker. She was fascinated by lutherie from the age of 14, when she met a violin maker, and at 21 she enrolled in the violin-making school in Mittenwald, where she also worked for the harp maker Eric Kleinmann. She then apprenticed with Lorenzo Frignani in Modena, Italy, until 2013, with a year of restoration work in Bernhard Kresse's workshop in Cologne, where she later shared a shop with Kresse. Today she has her own workshop in Schweinfurt.

Inspired by Frignani's 1910 Ramírez and 1906 García

Her models follow two historic guitars in Frignani's collection, a 1910 Manuel Ramírez and a 1906 Enrique García, which she studied for years, alongside a design of her own. Her guitars are light and quick to respond, with the natural, earthy warmth of those old instruments and modern clarity and volume.