2015 Sakurai-Kohno "Professional-J" CD/CSAR

This 2015 Sakurai-Kohno “Professional-J” is a classical guitar with a cedar top and CSA rosewood back and sides, made in Tokyo, Japan, with a 51mm nut.

Kohno’s Design, Sakurai’s Workshop

Designed by Masaru Kohno, Japan’s most recognized luthier, the “Professional-J” is a first-rate concert guitar, made in the Kohno workshop under his nephew Masaki Sakurai. These instruments have been played by Oscar Ghiglia, Eduardo Fernández and Shin-ichi Fukuda, and in earlier years by top players such as Sharon Isbin and Julian Bream.

Tone and Materials

The “J” stands for jacarandá – rosewood from Central and South America – and the rosewood back and sides of this guitar are stunning. Instead of the more familiar spruce, this one has a Canadian red cedar top, perfectly quarter-sawn and full of silk. With cedar, the well-known Kohno sound gains extra harmonic warmth. The tone is lovely and the volume very, very good, and it plays excellently.

The Label

With a 51mm nut, the neck is a little slimmer than usual – comfortable for smaller hands. Its “Sakurai Kohno Luthier” label reads Model “Professional-J”, 2015, with Masaki Sakurai’s signature. It is a guitar for anyone, from the performing musician to the recording artist.

Read and Watch More

In the videos above, a documentary portrays Masaki Sakurai at work, and Shin-ichi Fukuda plays Bach on one of his guitars (“The Luthier and the Guitarist”). Japan’s guitar makers – Kohno and Sakurai among them – fill Orfeo Magazine No. 15; the issue is free to read online and is part of the printed “Orfeo Magazine, 11-15”.

Orfeo No. 15: The Guitar in Japan

Orfeo Magazine, 11-15 (print edition)

Masaru Kohno (1926–1998)

Kohno, Sakurai & Kimishima are three generations of one Tokyo guitar-making family. Masaru Kohno – Japan’s most important classical guitar maker, and one of the best worldwide – was born in 1926 in Mito City. In 1960 he traveled to Spain and apprenticed for six months with Arcángel Fernández in Madrid; back in Tokyo he established his own workshop, and in 1967 he was awarded the Gold Medal at an international guitar-building competition in Belgium, judged among others by Ignacio Fleta, Robert Bouchet, Joaquín Rodrigo and Alirio Díaz. Julian Bream, Oscar Ghiglia and Sharon Isbin are among the many players of world renown who have used Kohno guitars.

Masaki Sakurai (1944–2025)

Born in Tokyo on May 10, 1944, Masaki Sakurai joined the workshop of his uncle, Masaru Kohno, in 1966. Among many other accomplishments, in 1988 he was awarded First Prize at the 4th International Guitar Making Competition in Paris, France. Mr. Kohno passed away in 1998, and the workshop was taken over by Sakurai, who carried on its legacy under the name Sakurai-Kohno. The guitars built since he took over have maintained the high levels of quality, precision craftsmanship, meticulous attention to detail and beauty of tone that have made Kohno guitars world renowned. Masaki Sakurai passed away in 2025 at the age of 81 (read our tribute).

So Kimishima (born 1983)

So Kimishima, Masaru Kohno’s grandson, studied at the Musashi Institute of Technology in Tokyo and joined the family workshop, where since 2007 he has worked and trained with his uncle, the great Masaki Sakurai. His guitars are based largely on the sound of Masaru Kohno’s guitars from the 1950s and 1960s, with design ideas and techniques learned from Sakurai, and he uses different bracing designs according to the tonewood of each top. In 2021 he announced his own model, the “Stella”, followed by his flagship “Sol” and its sister model “Luna”.