Our team

We know guitar making is both a craft and an art, and it's essential to have a quality and close-knit team of outstanding professionals. By choosing the city of Kazanlak in Bulgaria — a corner of Europe where the tradition of luthiery has been developing for more than a century — we can count on finding the most suitable personnel. The craft of guitar building has been handed down from generation to generation in this city. We are proud of our artisans who are committed to our mission to create guitars and ukuleles that are works of art, made by hand, with heart and soul.

Featured artisans

Doncho

Doncho has been with Кremona for 8 years. He adores his work and finds a vocation and meaning in it. He has moved through various departments over the years but finds his true passion in working on one of the guitar's most delicate parts, the bridge. He is a specialist in shaping a bridge from a piece of wood and putting various decorative and strengthening materials into it.

Nikolay

He's been part of the team of specialists in Кremona for 7 years. He is the head and operator of one of the newly introduced operations — laser cutting of various guitar components. His work involves carefully designing and fine-tuning the files used by the laser. The machine follows the prescribed shapes, sizes, and proportions and cuts the tops, backs, pickguards, and other guitar parts with absolute error-free precision. Nikolay oversees the whole process and handles this innovative machine.

Svetoslav

For 17 years, he has diligently and carefully prepared the parts that make up the guitar's body and then methodically assembles them into a single piece. He is one of the most knowledgeable craftsmen about guitar body construction and has become an expert in hand-placing bracings and kerflings on guitars, as well as their shaping and cutting. 

Desislava

Desislava has been working with Кremona for 5 years. While less tenured than other artisans, she is one of the most capable masters in each position. Her agility, desire, and adaptability make her a young luthier with extensive experience. She has mastered hand-sanding guitars to perfection and knows how to get every guitar to its finest possible appearance before the instrument is ready for varnishing.

Andrey

Andrey can be called the Luthier with a capital L. For 12 years, he has been embellishing the guitars of Kremona and creating exquisite elegance from wood. An elegant, skilled, able, and knowledgeable artisan, he performs some of the finest and most demanding operations requiring talent and experience. He creates and assembles the wood rosette that adorns the guitar's soundhole. Andrey is also the master who crafts Kremona custom guitars from start to finish.

Elka

For 17 years, Elka has been working with Kremona, studying and specializing in the subtleties of the craft. She is currently an expert in acoustic guitar assembly. She knows how to install the assembling and strengthening elements on the sides — kerfed lining, head block, and tail block, with which she puts together the top, sides, and back all in one. 

Stoyanka

For 5 years, Stoyanka has been giving beauty and finish to handcrafted instruments in Kremona. A skilled and hardworking craftsperson, Stoyanka occupies the production place in performing cosmetic procedures on the guitars. She crafts and applies the decorative cap on the guitar's heel and takes the effort to cut and install the fret markers on the fingerboard.

Donka

A truly loyal and priceless staff member for Кremona, Donka has been working here for as long as she can remember. For 35 years, she has been creating flawless instruments. She has been through the entire manufacturing process, staying the longest in her current positions, which include setting in the ornamental binding, purfling around the guitar body, and preparing and fitting the neck to the body.

Ali

Ali is one of the new additions to Кremona. He is an apprentice and has successfully sanded and polished guitars for 3 months. Ali is very passionate about his work and makes a daily effort to learn, understand and absorb as much information as possible to help him develop his skills and mastery. He knows he's at the best place to develop his talent and potential while gaining valuable experience, guided by some of the best mentors he can have.

Arif

Arif is the team's most senior member, spending his last 19 years as a specialist in making necks. He has some of the steadiest and most precise hands sculpting necks of impeccable and consistent quality each day. Arif is the testimony that there are no age limits for the luthier craft, the only thing that maters is the passion and love for making instruments. He is a role model, passing that on to the young enthusiasts who are first starting their journey in this age-old craft.

Mariana

For 21 years, she has cared for girding guitar edges with beautiful strips of real natural wood. Nimble, dexterous, and strong hands allow her to place, glue, and tighten the different layers of purfling and binding to the guitar's body. She perfectly handles the mold in which purfling, binding, and body are attached.

Ruska

During her 14 years at Kremona, Ruska has gained a perfect sense and the necessary experience to skillfully make and place thin wooden strips called braces on the top and back of the guitar body. Her hand has learned the delicate and precise movements to chisel and sculpt the shapes of these reinforcing elements as they are glued to the body.

Donka

Donka started working at Кremona 11 years ago when she joined as a violin maker. Her refined motility, movements, and reflexes contribute to cutting and shaping the bracing, which she does with ease. She always brings the shaped wooden bars to a perfectly correct form, distinguished by absolute smoothness.

Tsvetelina

Tsvetelina is an expert at making a guitar shine. She has been working for 13 years at Kremona and painstakingly ensures that each instrument acquires an exquisite final appearance. She knows and uses many tools and machines with which she polishes guitars. With the help of different polishing pastes, solutions, and other accessories, she figuratively turns the instrument's surface into a mirror.

Volodya

For 7 years, Volodya has worked his way through the position of fitting fingerboards to guitar bodies. His real passion is the ability to get guitars to perfect condition, ready for use by the musicians. Volodya takes the instruments right after varnishing to inspect and set them up. He's devoted to work such as fret leveling, fret edge treatment, fret polishing, saddle, and nut adjustment, as well as installing tuning machines, electronics, and strings. 

Dimitar

Countless instruments have passed through Dimitar's hands over the past 12 years. His work has touched almost every instrument that has come out of the Кremona workshop. He is at the final stage, where the instrument gets its last finished feel and look before it gets packaged. He plays and tests the instruments, and it is impossible for him to let an instrument go out with high or low frets.