Alessandro Perciaccante – Italian Luthier of the Granada School
Alessandro Perciaccante is one of the most compelling young voices in contemporary classical guitar making — an Italian craftsman who relocated to the coast of Granada and immersed himself so completely in the Spanish tradition that his instruments read as a natural continuation of it. Trained under one of the most respected luthiers working today, he has developed a voice of his own: intimate, responsive guitars that honour centuries of accumulated knowledge while speaking clearly to modern players.
From Italy to Granada – A Maker's Formation
Perciaccante received his first classical guitar at the age of thirteen, and from that point the instrument never really let him go. His path toward making guitars was less a sudden conversion than a gradual deepening of the same fascination. In 2017 he made the decisive move to Spain, arriving in the coastal province of Granada to study at the European Institute of Guitar Making under master luthier Stephen Hill. It was there, guided by Hill and fellow apprentice Evan Kingma, that he built his very first guitar.
What followed was an apprenticeship of unusual depth and duration. Over more than five years, Perciaccante became Hill's closest collaborator, eventually working on Hill's elite Master Model instruments — a distinction that had previously been extended to only one other apprentice in the workshop's history. That level of proximity to a rigorous, highly demanding making practice left a clear imprint on everything Perciaccante subsequently built under his own name.
The Granada Tradition and Its Living Influences
Granada occupies a singular place in the history of the classical guitar, and Perciaccante absorbed its lineage seriously. His deepest admiration is reserved for Antonio Marín Montero, the Granadino master whose decades of collaboration with the French luthier Robert Bouchet produced some of the twentieth century's most celebrated concert instruments. That partnership — between Spanish making instinct and French analytical rigour — forms a kind of ideal for Perciaccante: the idea that tradition and enquiry are not opposites but partners.
Further back, he holds Antonio de Torres in particular reverence. Torres, widely regarded as the architect of the modern Spanish guitar, established the proportions, the fan-bracing logic, and the tonal priorities that still govern serious guitar making. Understanding Torres is not optional for anyone working in the classical guitar making tradition — it is the foundation on which everything else rests. Perciaccante's commitment to studying historical masters places him in a lineage that stretches from Torres through the great twentieth-century Granadinos and forward into the present.
Construction Philosophy and Models
Perciaccante works within the traditional Spanish method of construction, the approach in which the top is built first — secured to a solera, with sides inserted directly — so that the maker can feel the geometry of the instrument developing under the hands from the very beginning. It is a method that demands an acute sensitivity to materials, since decisions made in the early stages of building are largely irreversible.
His range covers both classical and flamenco guitars, and he also builds smaller romantic-style instruments with shorter scale lengths for players who find the standard dimensions uncomfortable or who are drawn to the particular tonal palette of that earlier repertoire. This breadth of offering reflects a genuine curiosity about the guitar's history rather than a desire to simply cover market territory. For those interested in how different bracing and construction philosophies shape an instrument's voice, Perciaccante's work sits usefully alongside the broader conversation about fan-braced, double top and lattice guitars that defines contemporary lutherie.
Central to his approach is a deliberate limitation of annual output. By building only a small number of instruments each year, Perciaccante preserves the conditions for real refinement — the ability to work slowly, to listen carefully at each stage, and to respond to what the wood is doing rather than pushing ahead to a predetermined result. Each commission involves close communication with the player, with Perciaccante sharing photographs and updates throughout the process so that the finished guitar is genuinely shaped by the person who will play it.
Early Recognition
In 2019, Perciaccante entered the International Guitar Making Competition Antonio Marín Montero in Granada — the same competition named after the luthier he most admires. The instrument he submitted was a flamenco guitar, and it was only the fourth guitar he had ever built. It reached the final stage of the competition and was awarded fourth prize among more than twenty international luthiers. The result was significant not only as an early-career validation but as a demonstration that his training had already translated into instruments capable of meeting the scrutiny of experienced makers and judges.
That early achievement, coming from a maker still in his formative years, speaks to the quality of the formation he received and to a natural aptitude for the work. It is worth noting the context: the Antonio Marín Montero competition is held in Granada and attracts serious entries from makers across Europe and beyond. Finishing in the top four with a fourth guitar is unusual by any standard.
A Maker Rooted in Tradition, Open to the Present
What distinguishes Perciaccante from many of his contemporaries is the combination of rigorous historical grounding with genuine openness. He is not a nostalgist producing pastiches of earlier instruments, nor is he an innovator chasing novelty for its own sake. His guitars emerge from a considered dialogue between what the great makers of the past understood about wood, geometry and acoustics, and what a modern player actually needs from a concert instrument.
His Italian background and his immersion in the Spanish tradition give his work a particular character — a slightly different set of eyes on a tradition that can sometimes become self-enclosed. Italy has its own distinguished history of guitar making, with the Florentine workshop tradition producing outstanding instruments, as the work of makers like Andrea and Giovanni Tacchi demonstrates. Perciaccante carries something of that heritage into a practice shaped almost entirely by the Granada school, and the result is an individual voice rather than a simple apprentice's copy of a master's style.
As his instrument numbers climb — his most recent guitars carry serial numbers in the late teens — it becomes increasingly clear that Perciaccante is building a body of work, not simply producing individual objects. Players who acquire his guitars now are acquiring instruments from the early period of what gives every indication of being a long and significant making career.
Browse available Alessandro Perciaccante guitars → in the Siccas Guitars collection.
