2026 Nicolas Lamoureux SP/IN

A New Chapter in the Concert Model

We first met French guitar builder Nicolás Lamoureux at the ninth Antonio Marin Montero Guitar Making Competition held in Granada, Spain in July/August, 2026, where he took second prize for his classical guitar. The guitar we present here is the ACTUAL winning instrument from this very event, and is the latest version of Nicolas Lamoureux's concert model which shows how he blends the modern French school with the Romantic-era Parisian tradition.

Bracing and Construction

The spruce top is braced with the asymmetrical five-strut closed fan system favored by Dominique Field. Along with the transverse bar beneath the rosette, Lamoureux adds a diagonal brace, a feature taken from the 19th-century guitars of René Lacote, which were known for their beautiful trebles. This layout gives the midrange real presence without making the top too stiff. The fan struts beneath the bridge are kept light, so the guitar has a wide dynamic range and answers the right hand immediately. The back and sides are straight-grained rosewood in a simple, clean design, and reinforced linings add strength to the body.

French Elegance

The guitar has the understated elegance typical of the French school. The rosewood back is bookmatched and divided by a narrow center strip with fine purfling. Slender rosewood bindings frame the pale spruce top, and a gracefully pointed heel cap finishes the neck joint. The headstock has a scalloped French-style crown faced in rosewood. It carries gold tuners with engraved plates and warm rosewood buttons, and the fingerboard is ebony.

A Zebu Horn Bridge

The bridge adds a personal touch: its tie block is decorated with zebu horn rather than the usual bone or mother-of-pearl, and the horn's translucent honey tones catch the light beautifully.

An Homage to Paris

The rosette may be the most charming detail. It is inspired by the work of José Romanillos, but Lamoureux replaces the traditional Arab-Andalusian arches with a band of tiny Eiffel Towers, alternating in gold and brown against a black background. Rings of red and brown mosaic surround the band. It's a playful nod to his Parisian roots and to the city's long line of great makers, from Lacote to Friederich and Field.

The Sound

In the hands, this guitar is firmly in the French school. Lamoureux pairs a sturdy, rigid body with a free, flexible soundboard, the approach behind so many of Dominique Field's finest instruments. The sound shows it: plump, juicy, and fat, with a creamy richness strongly reminiscent of Field's guitars. Because the solid body wastes so little energy, the top works very efficiently, and the guitar has impressive power as a result. It is also exceptionally balanced from bass to treble. Like a Field guitar, it has a remarkable dynamic range, from the most intimate pianissimo to a full, commanding forte. The result is a refined, powerful concert instrument with a clear personality of its own.

Born in Paris in 1980, Nicolas Lamoureux studied classical guitar at the Conservatoire de Nancy in the late 1990s. A strong interest in form and visual design then took him into architecture and computer-generated imagery. For a decade he worked in Paris as a 3D artist in animated film, advertising, and architectural visualization, and that training in precision and proportion would later shape his approach to the guitar.

During those years his love of the guitar returned. He listened closely to recordings, went to concerts, talked with collectors, and read the specialized literature, all while studying how the great masters built their instruments while trying to understand what gives each of them their personalized sound quality. Out of curiosity and a taste for a challenge, he built his first guitar in his Paris living room. The result was a revelation. With encouragement and guidance from respected luthiers Dominique Field and Thomas Norwood, Lamoureux decided to devote himself to lutherie full-time. In 2017 he left Paris and set up his workshop in the Corrèze region of central France.

Today Lamoureux builds his own concert guitar model alongside faithful replicas of historical instruments. His work is firmly rooted in the French tradition, drawing on the legacies of Robert Bouchet, Daniel Friederich, and Dominique Field, as well as the Romantic-era guitars of the 19th-century Parisian maker René Lacote. His instruments combine a designer's eye with a deep respect for the French school.

After several years of being immersed in guitar construction, Nicolas Lamoureux was awarded second-prize for his classical guitar at the prestigious ninth Antonio Marin Montero Guitar Making Competition held in Granada, Spain in July/August, 2026.