2025 Masaki Sakurai "Special" CD/AR

This 2025 Masaki Sakurai “Special” is a classical guitar with a cedar top and African rosewood back and sides, made in Tokyo, Japan – from 2025, with African rosewood.

The “Special”

With more refined purfling, a finer rosette and select materials, the “Special” ranks above Sakurai’s “Concert-J”. Its back and sides are thick, and with its double-ebony reinforced neck it is a very stable guitar to travel with. Sakurai learned the craft from his uncle, Masaru Kohno, and although the influence is clear, he put his own personality into his guitars; this one shows a beautiful, classic design, perfectly executed. This one has African rosewood back and sides.

Playability and Tone

Thanks to the double ebony strips that reinforce the back of the neck, the set-up can be very accurate, with a low, easy action and no buzzing; the stiffer neck adds sustain too. Its cedar top gives a rich, warm sound, with the clarity and balance you would expect from spruce. There is power to spare for any concert situation, ensembles included.

The Signed Label

On the “Masaki Sakurai – Kohno Guitar Manufacturing” label: Model “Special”, 2025, signed. A top-quality concert instrument we can recommend to anyone.

Videos and Further Reading

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”). The guitar makers of Japan are the subject of Orfeo Magazine No. 15 – read the issue online, or find it in the print edition that collects issues 11 to 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”.