Jorge Raphael was born in Viçosa (pronounced vissoza), a city in the Brazilian countryside. He originally specialized in Chemistry, but he was always fascinated by classical music and became a guitar teacher at a local university.

 

As it happens to some guitarists, he fell in love with the art of making guitars and spent some time studying with renowned luthiers in Brazil and around the world.

As a luthier, he builds his instruments based on the concepts developed in the USA and Australia over the past few decades, which includes a different approach to the internal design (lattice) and the use of elevated fingerboards. On top of that, there's his own distinguished signature.

 

His guitars have an impressive volume and projection, with a very distinctive and bright tone along with a playability that helps professional guitarists obtain the most with less effort. The finishing is simply impeccable.

 

Jorge Raphael recently built and delivered three instruments for Odair Assad, one of the most prominent guitar virtuosos nowadays. One of the guitars is a 7-stringer.