2022 François Leonard CD/AR

A 2022 classical guitar by François Leonard, with a cedar top and African rosewood back and sides, made in Lorient, Brittany.

A Bracing System of His Own

François's bracing is entirely his own. He doesn't like to call it "lattice" – it is quite different from what is usually meant by that – but it is a sort of modified lattice of seven low and seven high struts, with no carbon. The struts are shaped either triangular (for more sustain) or round (for more strength and power), and arched to nuance the way the top moves. Because no two tops are equally stiff or dense, each guitar is built slightly differently to suit its own set of wood.

French Polish and Double Sides

Like Daniel Friederich and Dominique Field, who influence his structural ideas and aesthetics, he builds with double sides. He takes great pride in his French polish, a process he finds like a meditation, feeling every subtle change in the sound of the muñeca and in the mix of alcohol, shellac and oil.

Cedar Warmth

Fit and finish are sharp and clean. The tone is full-bodied, with a plump juiciness in every note from the basses to the highest trebles – stylish, nuanced and expressive – and the cedar adds darkness and warmth to the punch of his spruce guitars. There is plenty of power for any concert situation.

François Leonard: A French Luthier in Lorient

François Leonard was born in Nantes, France, in 1973. After studying the guitar for a few years he moved to England in 1995, at 22, to learn guitar making at the Newark School under Roy Courtnall, and stayed five years, also building traditional instruments such as the Swedish nyckelharpa and the hammered dulcimer. In 2006 he set up his own workshop in Lorient, Brittany.

Lakewood, Tobias Berg and Dominique Field

Around 2000 he moved to Germany, where for five years he worked at Lakewood Guitars alongside Tobias Berg, in charge of body construction on several thousand guitars – learning above all how to choose tops and hear their thicknesses – and where Michel Brück taught him French polishing. In the French tradition of Daniel Friederich and Dominique Field, whom he visits regularly, he builds with double sides, and he meets with acousticians to add science to the intuitive side of his craft.