Josef Štěpánek is a guitarist, composer, arranger and producer. He was born in 1973 in Beroun, where he still lives and runs a private music school. He began playing the guitar at thirteen; after grammar school he studied mathematics and philosophy at Charles University and was then admitted to the conservatory. He commands a wide range of stringed instruments: electric, acoustic and resonator guitars, pedal steel, mandolin, banjo and ukulele. He is a sought-after session player and has taken part in more than three hundred albums across folk, country, jazz and pop. He has worked with Michal Horáček, Lucie Bílá, Radůza, Vladimír Mišík (the album Jednou tě potkám, which won six Anděl awards), Xindl X, Věra Martinová and Petr Linhart. For Amplión Records he recorded the album Balance (2007) with the Zuzana Dumková Band.
