Anna Corona Custom Guitars: music applied to material and ingenuity

The genesis of Anna Corona, founded in 2010 in Palermo, represents a unique evolutionary path in the contemporary Made in Italy scene. With two degrees focused on the philosophy of contemporary music from the Music Academy of Palermo, Anna Corona was able to convert a solid theoretical framework into a feverish and rigorous “sickness for doing.” Starting as a self-taught maker—first on her home balcony and then in a garage—and investing scholarship savings into equipment like a bandsaw, the artisan overcame the dichotomy between cultivated music and the most popular instrument par excellence: the electric guitar.

Rejecting the utopian isolation of contemporary academic music, Anna Corona identifies the electric guitar as the true mandolin of the 20th century, the perfect medium to convey new compositional possibilities in our current reality. Her workshop rejects aesthetics for their own sake to pursue an exquisitely functional principle: aesthetics as the pure representation of technique. Through a symbiotic and painstaking synergy with the musician, where the setup is tailored to the performer’s anatomy and playing, every instrument leaves the laboratory as a unique, signed, and numbered piece, conceived to be felt as alive.

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The collection

Anna Corona’s production focuses on high-end electric and semi-acoustic instruments, where the Italian lutherie tradition of the second half of the 20th century is reflected in a modern key:

• Retrò Model (Hollow Body): The workshop’s flagship. A line born to combine the tonal impact of the historic mid-20th-century hollow bodies with the mechanical precision and stability required by the modern professional. It is the instrument chosen and consecrated on the Sanremo Festival stage by the band La Rappresentante di Lista.
• Custom Archtop Guitars: Complex jazz-inspired instruments produced sui generis, designed to fuse the acoustic architecture of the arched top with the artisan’s personal tonal visions, aimed at collectors and international concert performers.
• Electric Basses and Original Multi-string Models: Avant-garde projects including extended configurations like the 8-string model developed for Mac Tire.

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Construction philosophy, techniques, and materials

Anna Corona applies a philological approach, supported by rigorous raw material selection, to electric signals and hollow body lutherie:

• Tone Chamber Geometry and Feedback Control: In the Retrò line, Corona addresses the structural problem of large-body guitars—their susceptibility to resonance squeals or larsen—by engineering a specific internal tone chamber design. This structural coupling allows the wood to vibrate while guaranteeing very warm sustain, transforming feedback from a nuisance into a dynamic element controllable through touch. The asymmetric body lines explicitly pay homage to the eclectic and historical experiments of avant-garde Italian lutherie, evoking the bold geometries of Wandrè.
• Custom Scatterwound Electronics: The sonic heart of her machines relies on pairs of P90 pickups with Alnico II magnets. The coils are hand-wound using the scatterwound method (disordered winding), using AWG42 plain enamel copper wire. This artisanal technique reduces parasitic capacitance between turns compared to industrial pickups, guaranteeing a more open high end and three-dimensional harmonic richness, while maintaining a warm and full timbre.
• Elite Mechanical Specifications: The maple neck is coupled via a bolt-on joint to a body featuring a fretboard with a modern 14” radius and a 25.5” scale length, mounting 22 jumbo frets. The hardware combines vintage style with avant-garde stability, integrating vintage Kluson tuners with a combined system featuring a GOTOH roller bridge and a fluid Duesenberg Les Trem II tremolo, expanding expressive possibilities beyond a classic fixed bridge.

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Collaborations and recognitions

The global prestige of Anna Corona has been consolidated through high-level international and national collaborations. Beyond the Sanremo success with La Rappresentante di Lista, which consecrated the Retrò guitar before a large television audience, one of the most enthusiastic and assiduous admirers of Anna’s work is the brilliant Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, a long-time collaborator of Herbie Hancock, whose transmodal jazz fuses African polyrhythms with harmonic avant-garde. Constant exchange with the vibrant Sicilian musician community and vintage collectors has allowed the brand to grow exponentially in authority.

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Direct experience

Anna Corona has structured her laboratory as a protected atelier, where the time and space of life are marked by meticulous hourly planning to ensure maximum executive concentration. The business operates on high-value-added lines:

• Design Synergy: The musician is integrated into every phase of their instrument’s birth, translating the biomechanics of their hands into the ergonomics of the guitar body.
• Philological Restoration and Vintage Lutherie: A fundamental component of the workshop is dedicated to the recovery and refurbishment of damaged vintage instruments. Her musicological knowledge allows Anna Corona to approach restoration while respecting the historical role and organological conservation of the instrument.