2017 Masaki Sakurai "Maestro RF" SP/AR

This 2017 Masaki Sakurai “Maestro RF” is a classical guitar with a spruce top and African rosewood back and sides, made in Tokyo, Japan – with a raised fingerboard and African rosewood back and sides.

The “Maestro RF”

Its notable feature is the “RF” – a raised fingerboard, designed to give the player easier access to the upper registers. The bridge shape and the head design are among the elements Sakurai designed himself. Here the back and sides are of African rosewood.

Playing It

Two ebony reinforcing strips in the back of the neck make a very accurate set-up possible – a low, easy action without buzzing – and the stiffer neck improves sustain as well. Clear and clean, the spruce top still has plenty of depth and warmth. There is plenty of power here for any concert situation, including ensemble settings.

The Label

Although used, the guitar is in excellent condition, with one small, almost invisible crack in the lower bout of the back, recently repaired by German Vázquez Rubio, and some minor finish wear, normal for a guitar of this age that has been played regularly. Its “Masaki Sakurai” label from Kohno Guitar Manufacturing reads Model “Maestro-R.F”, 2017, and carries his signature. We can recommend it to anyone looking for a top-quality concert instrument.

In Orfeo Magazine

Orfeo’s issue No. 15, “The Guitar in Japan”, is available to read online, and in print as part of “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”.