2018 Annette Stephany SP/CY

A 2018 classical guitar by Annette Stephany, with a spruce top and cypress back and sides – her Manuel Ramírez model with traditional wooden tuning pegs.

A Cypress Ramírez

Annette's model is a slightly modified 1910 Manuel Ramírez, the original of which belongs to Lorenzo Frignani, with the 7+2 symmetrical bracing of that guitar. The original is rosewood; here she used cypress for the back, sides and head veneer, and fitted wooden pegs for an authentic old-world feel.

Light and Responsive

The guitar is incredibly light and responds to the slightest touch – a joy to play. The sound is natural and earthy, with great separation of voices and surprising volume.

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.