Masaru Kohno and Sakurai Kohno – Japan's Greatest Classical Guitar Dynasty
When Masaru Kohno walked into the workshop of Arcángel Fernández in Madrid in 1959, he could not speak a word of Spanish — and Fernández could not speak a word of Japanese. Yet over the following months, Kohno sat quietly in the back of the workshop, watching and absorbing everything he could. What he brought home to Tokyo would transform classical guitar making in Japan forever. Masaru Kohno (1926–1998) stands as the most important luthier to emerge from Japan and one of the finest guitar makers the world has ever known, a legacy continued to this day by his nephew Masaki Sakurai under the name Sakurai Kohno.
From Tokyo to Madrid — The Education of a Master
Masaru Kohno was born in Mito City, Japan, in 1926. After graduating from the Tokyo College of Arts and Crafts in 1948 with a degree in woodcraft, he spent years refining his understanding of materials and construction before turning his attention to the classical guitar. His journey to Europe in 1959 proved decisive. In Madrid he presented himself daily at the workshop of Arcángel Fernández for approximately six months, quietly observing the master at work. He returned to Tokyo in 1960 with something precious: a deep, embodied understanding of the Spanish tradition of guitar building — and, reportedly, a Fleta instrument to study at close quarters.
The influence of Ignacio Fleta on Kohno's development was profound. Upon his return from Spain, Kohno's headstock designs shifted noticeably toward the Fleta style, and his tonal ideals — clarity of projection, refined balance across the registers, and a singing treble — reflected the best of what Madrid and Barcelona had to offer. Unlike many luthiers who borrowed superficially from the Spanish tradition, Kohno internalized it and then built something distinctly his own: instruments of extraordinary consistency, precision, and voice.
The 1967 Liège Competition and International Recognition
In September 1967, Masaru Kohno entered one of his guitars at the Concours International de Guitare in Liège, Belgium, competing against thirty other luthiers from around the world. The judging panel was remarkable: it included Ignacio Fleta, Robert Bouchet, Joaquín Rodrigo, and Alirio Díaz. Kohno's guitar was submitted without a label. When Ignacio Fleta examined it, he reportedly remarked that it reminded him very much of his own work. Kohno won the Gold Medal — First Prize. Daniel Friederich, the celebrated Parisian luthier, took the Silver. For a Japanese maker to triumph over the finest European craftsmen of the era was extraordinary, and the victory brought Kohno immediate international recognition.
What followed was a rapid ascent. Concert guitarists of the highest calibre began seeking out Kohno instruments. Julian Bream, Oscar Ghiglia, Sharon Isbin, and Shinichi Fukuda all played Kohno guitars, cementing the workshop's reputation not merely as a curiosity from Japan but as a source of instruments capable of matching any stage in the world. Kohno expanded his operation significantly: between 1961 and 1974 he worked from a smaller Tokyo workshop, before opening a large 4,000-square-foot facility in 1975 as demand grew. It is worth noting that among the classical guitar makers of the twentieth century, very few achieved the combination of critical acclaim, player adoption, and production consistency that Kohno managed across his career.
The Model Range — A Hierarchy of Craft
Kohno's model numbering system — running from modest student instruments up through the celebrated No. 10, No. 20, and No. 30 — became a trusted guide for buyers navigating the market. The lower-numbered models were built in part by workshop assistants and were intended as serious but accessible instruments. As the numbers climbed, so did the proportion of work done by Kohno himself, the quality of tonewoods, and the complexity of finish. The top-tier instruments — the No. 30 and the guitars labelled simply "Special" or "Concert" — represent Kohno's finest output and are today among the most sought-after vintage Japanese classical guitars anywhere in the world.
The construction approach drew on the best of both the Spanish and Central European traditions: careful voicing of the spruce or cedar soundboard, meticulous bracing informed by the fan-brace principles he observed in Fernández's workshop, and a level of finish that spoke to the Japanese craft sensibility of attention and discipline. For a deeper understanding of how these construction traditions developed, the overview of fan-braced, double-top and lattice guitars provides useful context on the choices available to twentieth-century luthiers.
Masaki Sakurai — Carrying the Legacy Forward
Masaki Sakurai was born in Tokyo on 10 May 1944. He joined his uncle's workshop in 1966 — the year before Kohno's triumphant win in Liège — and studied electrical engineering at Sophia University while simultaneously learning the craft of lutherie from the inside. Over the next three decades he became indispensable to the operation, developing his own voice as a maker while remaining committed to the tonal ideals and construction standards that defined the Kohno name.
Sakurai's own abilities were recognised internationally in 1988, when he won First Prize at the 4th International Guitar Making Competition in Paris — a validation that placed him firmly in the top tier of the world's active luthiers. When Masaru Kohno passed away in 1998, Sakurai took over the workshop and continued building under the name Sakurai Kohno, ensuring that the methods, materials choices, and quality benchmarks established over four decades were not lost. His model range expanded thoughtfully over the years: the Maestro, the Special, the Professional J, and the Concert J all maintained the workshop's core identity while reflecting Sakurai's own evolved sensibility and the expectations of contemporary concert players.
Masaki Sakurai passed away on 20 July 2025, at the age of 81, having spent nearly sixty years in the service of classical guitar making. His contribution — both as a student of Kohno and as a master in his own right — is inseparable from the story of the workshop he helped build. Under his stewardship the tradition was passed to So Kimishima, who joined the workshop and earned Sakurai's approval for the quality of his own work, going on to develop his own original model, the Stella, in 2021. The workshop, now operating under the names Kohno, Sakurai, and Kimishima, remains one of the most active and respected in the world.
Significance in the Broader World of Classical Guitar
The story of Masaru Kohno and Sakurai Kohno is, in many ways, the story of how the classical guitar became truly global. Before Kohno, the assumption — in Europe and North America at least — was that the finest instruments could only come from Spain, or perhaps from the workshops of individual French masters like Daniel Friederich. Kohno's Gold Medal in 1967 disrupted that assumption definitively. The fact that a Japanese maker, working from a tradition he had absorbed largely through observation and study, could produce an instrument that silenced a panel including Fleta and Bouchet was a signal that the craft had crossed a cultural boundary.
What followed — the decades of Kohno production, the adoption by leading soloists, and the seamless continuation under Masaki Sakurai — demonstrated that the achievement was not a fluke but the foundation of a lasting school. For players today, a Kohno or Sakurai Kohno instrument offers access to one of the richest traditions in twentieth-century lutherie: instruments shaped by the Spanish school, refined by Japanese craft discipline, and endorsed by the most demanding performers of each era.
Browse available Masaru Kohno and Sakurai Kohno guitars → in the Siccas Guitars collection.
