I was born in 1966 in the university town of Goettingen as the son of a university professor of German literature and a schoolteacher. Having widespread interests in the entire field of fine arts and science, I have been working with wood from childhood on.
I started playing classical guitar at the age of 10, and made my first guitar at 13. At that time already, my guitar teacher suggested that I should choose guitar making as a profession. However, I graduated from highschool with the intention of studying Physics, but abandoned the idea when I found that it was practical application, not abstract theory, which interested me. I served an apprenticeship with a local guitar maker from 1989 to 1991 in Munich.
In the following years I continued making and improving my own models of
classical and flamenco guitars and established my workshop for classical and flamenco guitars in Munich in 1996. In 1998 I was awarded the Masterprize of the Bavarian Government for my extraordinary performance during the Master of Crafts Examination
Since 2002, I am also teaching Theory of Guitarmaking at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
In 2004, I relocated my workshop to Sölden near Freiburg, and in Febr. 2011 to the "Center of Crafts and Culture" in Emmendingen.
Sebastian Stenzel
