Stéphane Wrembel, Guitarist and Composer

Stéphane Wrembel is one of the most distinctive guitarists and composers of his generation, recognized for his extraordinary musicianship, expansive musical vision, and deeply personal artistic voice.

Born in Paris and raised in Fontainebleau, Wrembel first studied classical piano, beginning at the age of four. But in his mid-teens, he discovered that he had an affinity for guitar. As a big fan of Pink Floyd, he “spent hours learning David Gilmour’s style,” he said. “So I had a classical background, a passion for rock music, and then I found out about Django. I fell in love with the very strong impressionist feel in his music.”

Django Reinhardt, long regarded as one of the most influential musicians and composers of all time, was a Sinti (a Roma group from Western Europe). Wrembel immersed himself in Sinti culture, spending “six, seven years going to the camps. I started learning the atmosphere of what it really means to play Sinti-style guitar. I learned from the masters such as Angelo Debarre and Serge Krief. That’s how you learn this music because it is specific to a culture.  Music is not only the notes. Without the culture, something is missing.”

In 2019, Stéphane released Django L’Impressionniste, a groundbreaking recording of 17 rarely heard solo guitar preludes composed by Reinhardt between 1937 and 1950. Stéphane spent four years transcribing and mastering these works, publishing them in a beautifully bound book of sheet music in 2021—the first complete collection of its kind. Stéphane’s solo show is a performance of these 17 compositions in their entirety.