Every so often a guitar arrives from a direction nobody was watching. The classical world has spent a century pointing at Madrid, Granada, Valencia and a handful of German and Japanese workshops, and it has spent that same century mostly ignoring a factory town in the Bulgarian Rose Valley where a former army gunsmith decided, in the wreckage of the First World War, that he would rather make instruments than weapons.
That decision is why the Kremona Solea exists. It’s an all-solid concert nylon-string with a red cedar soundboard, solid cocobolo back and sides, an ebony bridge and board, hand-inlaid wood and abalone rosette, and a price that sits underneath what a comparable Spanish or Japanese all-solid instrument costs. It has become one of the most talked-about “why is this not more expensive” guitars in the nylon-string market.
This isn’t a review. It’s the story of a workshop that has been building continuously since 1924 through monarchy, communism and a post-1989 rebuild, and of the model that sits closest to the top of its production range — plus an honest accounting of who actually plays Kremonas, which turns out to be a more interesting question than the marketing copy suggests.
Kazanlak, 1924: The Gunsmith Who Changed Trades
Kremona’s founder was Dimitar Georgiev, a gunsmith and mechanical engineer conscripted into the Bulgarian army during the First World War. He played mandolin, and being mechanically inclined he carried it on deployment and kept it — and his comrades’ instruments — playable in the field. By the company’s own published account, what he saw of what weapons do to people convinced him to redirect his skills permanently.
After the war he returned to Bulgaria and began repairing violins, mandolins and guitars. He was good enough at it that in 1922 he earned an apprenticeship in Germany, and he went to the right place: Markneukirchen, the Saxon instrument-making town that had been turning out violins, guitars and bowed instruments for centuries. It is also, as Kremona is fond of pointing out, the birthplace of Christian Frederick Martin, who built his first guitars there before emigrating to Pennsylvania.
Georgiev came home to Kazanlak in 1924 and opened a workshop with his brothers Boncho and Ivan. It was the first stringed-instrument studio in Bulgaria, and it made guitars, mandolins and violins from the start. Demand outran capacity fast: by 1931 Georgiev was bringing luthiers over from Markneukirchen to keep up. Surviving instruments from the 1920s and 1930s — including the German-style “Clover” model — wear their Saxon influence openly.
By the late 1940s Kremona had expanded into steel-string guitars, electric guitars, pianos, cases and strings, which is roughly when the operation shifted from a family luthiery to something closer to an industrial concern. That scale is why, for several decades, Kremona instruments were everywhere in Eastern Europe and almost nowhere in Western guitar shops. And it’s why the single most famous player association in the company’s history happened entirely by accident.
Ali Farka Touré and the Guitar Nobody Planned
In the early 1980s the Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré came across a Kremona and it became his favourite instrument. He played it in concert extensively and it appears on album covers — Kremona’s own history page reproduces the sleeve of his 1990 record African Blues with the guitar in his hands.
This is worth sitting with, because it’s the opposite of how endorsements normally work. Nobody at the factory sent Touré a guitar. There was no artist relations department, no signing, no photo shoot. A Bulgarian state-era instrument found its way into West Africa through the trade channels of the period, a genuinely great musician picked it up, and it stayed in his hands for years. That is the most honest possible endorsement — and it’s also, crucially, not an endorsement of the Solea, which is a modern Artist Series model from a rebuilt, post-1989 Kremona. Anyone telling you Ali Farka Touré played a Solea is compressing forty years of company history into a sales pitch. His son Vieux Farka Touré carried the tradition forward on different instruments entirely.
Where the Solea Sits
Modern Kremona runs a tiered lineup: the Soloist series at the entry end, Performer models with cutaways and electronics for stage work, a Flamenco series, the Reinhardt signature guitars, the Artist series, and a small Luthier series at the top. The Solea sits in the Artist series — Kremona’s description is “concert-level guitars, handcrafted from premier all-solid wood” — and at $2,799 it is the most expensive instrument in that series, roughly double the $1,429 spruce-and-rosewood Romida RD-S that sits alongside it.
What you’re paying the premium for is the cocobolo. The Solea pairs a solid red cedar top with solid cocobolo back and sides, a combination that most builders reserve for their upper shelf because cocobolo is dense, oily, difficult to work, unpredictable to bend, and increasingly restricted in trade. It’s also spectacularly figured — orange, red and near-black streaking that makes the back of a Solea look like something out of a mineral collection.
Specifications
Two details in that table do more work than the rest combined. The first is the bracing designation: Kremona publishes different top bracing patterns across the range, and the Solea uses the M2 pattern while the Romida uses M1. This is not cosmetic. Different fan layouts distribute the top’s stiffness differently, and it’s the clearest published signal that Kremona treats the Solea as its own voice rather than a Romida in fancier wood.
The second is the finish. Thin polyurethane is a compromise position — not the French-polished shellac of a handbuilt concert instrument, not the thick sprayed poly of a factory guitar. It gives up a small amount of top responsiveness in exchange for durability that survives touring, humidity swings and the occasional belt buckle. For a guitar built to be gigged rather than glass-cased, it’s the correct call, and it’s part of why used Soleas tend to look considerably better than their age.
Famous Players: The Honest Version
Here is where most gear writing about Kremona goes soft, so let’s be precise.
Kremona genuinely maintains a real, published artist roster — four pages of it on the US site, with individual biography pages for each player. This is not the recycled fantasy roster problem you find at some brands, where the same five legends get pasted under every model. These are actual working musicians with actual relationships to the company.
Verified names on that roster include Elliot Easton of The Cars, the German Sinti guitarist Lulo Reinhardt — grand-nephew of Django Reinhardt and the only player with signature Kremona models to his name, the Daimen and the Kiano — Russian seven-string Romani virtuoso Vadim Kolpakov, Brazilian composer and guitarist Gabriel Santiago, Los Angeles jazz guitarist Will Brahm (Arturo Sandoval, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Jane Monheit, Gretchen Parlato), New York jazz guitarist Ron Jackson, dancer-musician Mark Ballas, and singer-songwriters Anna Katarina and Jessica Malone.
What is not documented is any of them playing a Solea. Kremona’s artist pages, unusually, do sometimes name specific models — Gabriel Santiago’s page is tagged to the Fiesta F65CW-7S seven-string, and Lulo Reinhardt has his own signature line — and across the roster the Solea does not appear. Nor is there photo or video evidence tying a named touring artist to this specific cocobolo model.
That absence is worth explaining rather than papering over, because it isn’t a black mark on the guitar. Touring professionals overwhelmingly need onboard electronics and cutaways, which is exactly what Kremona’s Performer and signature series provide and the Solea deliberately does not. A pure acoustic concert guitar with no pickup and no cutaway is an instrument for the concert hall, the studio and the living room — and studio players rarely get credited by model. The Solea’s buyer is the serious amateur, the conservatory student who has outgrown a laminate-back instrument, the working teacher, and the recording musician who wants exotic wood without a five-figure invoice.
So the accurate statement is this: Kremona is a brand with a verifiable artist roster and one accidental legend in Ali Farka Touré, and the Solea is a model that sits outside that roster’s needs by design. Compare that to the situation at Alhambra, where the artist list is equally real and equally skewed toward the top of the range, or to the murkier picture at Cordoba, where legends get invoked who were dead or retired before the company existed.
How the Solea Actually Sounds
Cedar over cocobolo is a specific and slightly unusual pairing, and understanding each half explains the whole.
Red cedar as a soundboard gives you immediate maturity. It’s less dense than spruce, it moves under a lighter attack, and it arrives sounding broken-in rather than needing five years of playing to open up. The trade is headroom: cedar compresses when you dig in hard, where spruce keeps climbing. It’s why cedar dominates in Latin, Brazilian and fingerstyle contexts and why concert soloists who need to fill a 900-seat hall over an orchestra often go back to spruce.
Cocobolo is at the dense, reflective end of the rosewood family — harder and oilier than Indian rosewood, closer in behaviour to Brazilian. It reflects high frequencies efficiently, so it adds sparkle and a long, complex sustain, and it firms up the bass. Players who have spent time with the Solea consistently describe the same combination: resonant, weighty low end with unusually crystalline treble, fast response, and articulation that survives dense chord voicings without turning to mush.
The practical result is a guitar that separates voices well. Contrapuntal classical repertoire stays legible. Bossa nova comping — where the thumb is playing a bassline and the fingers are placing chords on the offbeats — keeps its two layers distinct instead of collapsing into a wash. Kremona’s own copy calls the Solea “perfect for Brazilian rhythms,” and for once the marketing description matches the physics.
Tone Recipes and Setup Notes
Bossa nova and Brazilian
Play over the soundhole to just behind it, thumb about 40% of the way toward the bridge from the soundhole edge for a firmer bass, fingers flat-ish with more flesh than nail. Keep the action on the low side (roughly 3.2mm at the 12th on the sixth string, 2.6mm on the first). Normal-tension strings, not hard — the cocobolo already supplies the definition, and hard tension pushes the cedar top toward stiffness. This is João Gilberto and Baden Powell territory, and the Solea’s separation is the whole point.
Classical repertoire
Move the right hand back toward the bridge for Baroque and early Classical material — the cedar’s natural warmth needs the ponticello brightness to keep Bach articulate. Use more nail, less flesh. For Romantic and 20th-century Spanish repertoire, come forward toward the fingerboard and let the cedar do what cedar does. Hard-tension strings are worth trying here if you need projection; the Solea takes them well, but expect a slightly slower response.
Jazz and crossover
Thumb-and-fingers over the soundhole, moderate nail, and let the cocobolo sustain carry the chord tails. The 52mm nut is standard classical width — wide by crossover standards — so players coming from a 48mm-nut nylon crossover should expect an adjustment period on chord grips. The flat, unradiused fingerboard reinforces that.
Recording
A small-diaphragm condenser at roughly 30cm, aimed at the 12th fret rather than the soundhole, captures the Solea’s treble sparkle without the boom the cocobolo bass can push into a close mic. A second mic over the bridge, blended low, adds body. Because there are no electronics, this guitar is a microphone instrument by design — plan accordingly if you gig.
The Solea in Context
Against its own siblings
The Romida RD-S is the obvious internal comparison: solid European spruce over solid Indian rosewood, same 650mm/52mm dimensions, same Honduras cedar neck, same ebony board, same case, at half the price. It’s brighter on top, more conventional across the board, and the M1 bracing gives it a different response curve. If you want traditional Spanish concert voicing, the Romida is arguably the better-value instrument. The Solea is the one you buy when you want warmth and sparkle simultaneously, and when the cocobolo matters to you.
The Sofia SC-T sits lower still — solid top, solid back and sides, mahogany neck with a truss rod, rosewood board and bridge rather than ebony — and is the value entry point into all-solid Kremona.
Against the wider market
At $2,799 the Solea competes with mid-tier Spanish all-solid instruments and with Cordoba’s Luthier and Master series. Players who have compared the two most often frame it as the Solea sounding more direct and less polished than a comparable Cordoba — which, depending on temperament, reads as either honesty or roughness. Against a handbuilt Spanish concert guitar in the $6,000-plus bracket, or a vintage Ramírez 1a, the Solea gives up individual voicing and the last increment of responsiveness. It does not give up much in materials.
Against flamenco instruments
Despite the name — soleá is one of the foundational flamenco palos — this is not a flamenco guitar. Cedar-over-cocobolo with a full-depth body is about as far from the cypress-and-spruce, low-action, percussive brief of a flamenco blanca as a nylon-string gets. If flamenco is the goal, Kremona’s Rosa series exists for exactly that, and the tradition running from Sabicas through Paco de Lucía was built on very different instruments. The Solea borrows the word, not the specification — the same way Cordoba’s GK line borrows a flamenco silhouette for a gigging instrument.
Buying Guide
Buy the Solea if: you want an all-solid concert nylon-string with genuinely exotic back and sides, you play material that benefits from warm fundamentals plus articulate treble (Brazilian, jazz, Romantic classical, fingerstyle), you’re mic’ing rather than plugging in, and you’d rather spend money on wood and workmanship than on a name.
Look elsewhere if: you need onboard electronics or a cutaway (Kremona’s Performer series), you play flamenco (the Rosa series), you’re a concert soloist who needs spruce-style headroom over an orchestra (the Romida, or a spruce-topped Spanish instrument), or you’re coming from a narrow-nut crossover and aren’t ready for 52mm and a flat board.
What to check on a used one: cocobolo is oily and dense, which makes it stable but also makes finish adhesion worth inspecting — look along the sides for any lifting at the binding. Check the top for the small dish behind the bridge that indicates normal string tension versus the pronounced belly that indicates a problem. Cedar tops mark easily; cosmetic dings there are common and not structural. Confirm the saddle still has height left for future action adjustment. And check paperwork if you plan to travel internationally, because cocobolo is CITES-listed and cross-border movement of instruments containing it has documentation requirements that change periodically — verify current rules before flying.
Setup expectations: Kremona USA states that every instrument gets professional inspection and setup in the US before shipping, which raises the floor considerably compared to typical imported nylon-strings. Even so, budget for a saddle adjustment to your preferred action once the guitar acclimatises to your climate.
Living With One
Nylon-string guitars are more humidity-sensitive than steel-strings because the tops are thinner and lightly braced, and a cedar top on a solid cocobolo body is squarely in the “own a hygrometer” category. Keep it between 45% and 55% relative humidity. The included CGHC hardshell case — wooden arch-top shell, plush interior, lockable — is genuinely good and is the right place to store the guitar with a case humidifier in winter.
Royal Classics Sonata strings come fitted from the factory and are a reasonable starting point, but nylon strings are cheap and the Solea responds audibly to changes. Try a carbon or fluorocarbon treble set if you want even more treble definition, or a warmer nylon set if the cocobolo sparkle is too much in a bright room.
Kremona builds without outsourcing — components made and assembled in the same Kazanlak workshop — which matters for repair. Parts are consistent, and a competent classical repair tech will find nothing unfamiliar inside.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Kremona Solea made?
In Kazanlak, Bulgaria, in the Rose Valley, at the workshop Dimitar Georgiev founded in 1924. Kremona states that all components are built and assembled in-house with no outsourcing. Instruments sold in the US are inspected and set up by Kremona USA before shipping to dealers.
Is the Kremona Solea all solid wood?
Yes. Solid red cedar top, solid cocobolo back and sides. It’s part of Kremona’s Artist series, which the company defines as concert-level guitars built entirely from solid wood — as opposed to the Soloist series, where laminate back and sides appear at the lower price points.
Which famous guitarists play the Kremona Solea?
No named artist is publicly documented on a Solea specifically. Kremona does maintain a real artist roster — Elliot Easton of The Cars, Lulo Reinhardt, Vadim Kolpakov, Gabriel Santiago, Will Brahm, Ron Jackson and others — but where models are named, they’re Performer, Fiesta and signature-series instruments with electronics and cutaways, which is what touring work demands. Ali Farka Touré famously played a Kremona from the early 1980s, but that was a Bulgarian-era instrument, not a Solea.
What does “Solea” mean?
Soleá is one of the core flamenco forms, derived from the Spanish soledad, meaning solitude. It’s a naming choice in the Spanish-guitar tradition rather than a spec claim — the Solea is a classical concert guitar, not a flamenco instrument.
Kremona Solea vs Romida — which should I buy?
The Romida RD-S is solid European spruce over solid Indian rosewood at roughly half the price, with a different (M1) bracing pattern and a brighter, more traditionally Spanish voice. The Solea’s cedar-and-cocobolo pairing gives warmer fundamentals with more treble sparkle and longer sustain. Choose the Romida for traditional classical repertoire and value; choose the Solea for Brazilian, jazz and crossover material, and for the cocobolo.
Does the Kremona Solea have a pickup?
No. It’s a purely acoustic instrument with no onboard electronics and no cutaway. If you need to plug in, Kremona’s Performer series is built for that, or you can fit an aftermarket transducer — Kremona is affiliated with KNA Pickups, which makes soundhole and undersaddle options designed for nylon-strings.
What are the scale length and nut width?
650mm (25.6″) scale and 52mm (2.05″) at the nut — the standard modern classical dimensions. The fingerboard is flat and unradiused. Players coming from a crossover model with a 48mm nut and a radiused board should expect a real adjustment.
Is cocobolo a problem for international travel?
It can be. Cocobolo is a CITES-listed species and the rules governing instruments containing restricted woods have been revised more than once. Before flying internationally with a Solea, check the current requirements for your route and carry any documentation supplied with the instrument.
How does the Kremona Solea compare to a Cordoba at the same price?
Players who have compared them tend to describe the Solea as more direct and less refined-sounding, with Cordoba’s upper models feeling more polished and consistent. Which you prefer is a matter of taste rather than quality — both are all-solid instruments at that tier. The Solea’s differentiator is the cocobolo, which Cordoba generally reserves for higher price points.