Mo Léon Fabian
was born in Berlin in 1994. He grew up in a musical family, where he developed an early passion for music and the guitar. During his school years, he gained his first band experience.
After graduating from high school and a long trip through the USA, he studied psychology for a few semesters and later history and english studies.
In search of a new path, he built his first guitar during an internship with master luthier Matthias Voigt in Leipzig and subsequently completed an apprenticeship as a luthier in Klingenthal.
This allowed him to combine his heartfelt passion for building and playing guitars, with the goal of creating the perfect instrument for players.
He also continues to perform live music in various constellations, Duos/Bands.
Birger Groß
was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in 1998. At the age of eight, he decided that the guitar would be his instrument and began taking classical guitar lessons.
Around the time he earned his university entrance qualification and began a short-lived foray into veterinary medicine, his waning enthusiasm for classical guitar music gave way to a growing interest in stringed instruments, their construction, and their playing style. More of a collector than a musician, he soon owned a wide variety of instruments, from mandolins and banjos to both a baroque lute and baroque guitar. This also led Birger to instrument making, as unusual or historical instruments were often difficult or impossible to acquire, leaving him with no alternative but to build them himself.
After several successful projects, he decided to drop his studies at the University of Zurich in 2021 to instead begin an apprenticeship as a Luthier in Klingenthal. In 2024, he completed his training as the best in his class and also went on to win the Deutsche Meisterschaft im Handwerk/German Craft Skills competition at both the state and national levels that autumn.
A little bit of History
In the Beginning
In 1833, Christian Friedrich Martin left his hometown of Markneukirchen in Saxony's Vogtland region and set out for the new world. The local violin makers' guild had repeatedly filed complaints with the Saxon king, attempting to forbid his father and him from building and selling guitars. 14 years he had spent at Johann Georg Stauffer's guitar factory in Vienna, initially as an apprentice and eventually as a foreman, and now he was forbidden from practicing his craft.
New York was the destination for his journey, as the land of unlimited opportunities had no kings or violin makers' guilds. After a few years, he sold his music store in New York and moved to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where he opened a guitar factory. Over the next few decades, both his business and his reputation grew steadily. Thanks to outstanding quality and constant innovation, C. F. Martin & Co. soon dominated the American guitar market and thereby laid the foundation for the American guitarmaking tradition.
The Golden Era
C. F. Martin's success and innovation culminated in the late 1920s, a period now known as the Golden Era of Martin Guitars.
Preceding changes and optimizations, such as the scalloping of the bracing, increasingly larger bodies, and the use of steel strings, ultimately led to the creation of the Dreadnought. With a volume and projection never before seen, its iconic shape, large body, and unmatched presence soon made it one of the most popular acoustic guitars, a position it managed to keep to this day. Following material shortages due to the ongoing Second World War and further changes in guitarmaking, the Golden Era came to a close in the early 1940s.
Among players, collectors, luthiers, and dealers, Golden Era guitars are highly regarded for their unmistakable tone and outstanding build quality, as well as the quality of the tonewoods used.
And now about us
191 years after C. F. Martin set out for America and incidentally founded the American guitar-making tradition, Mo Léon Fabian and Birger Groß finish their training as luthiers in Klingenthal, just one town over from Markneukirchen, and embark on their own journey into the wide world… to Ribnitz-Damgarten a beautiful location with a well equipped workshop.
That’s us.
In 2025, inspired by our shared passion for the guitars of the Golden Era, and our mutual enthusiasm for both building and playing, we decided to set up a joint workshop. Our goal: to build guitars in the American tradition.