We’ve been handcrafting Grand Concert guitars for more than 5 decades—Made by a small team of luthiers one at a time, the old fashioned way from our small Yamaha Music Craft factory in Hammatsu, Japan come the completely handmade Grand Concert (GC) guitars.

While these guys make it look easy to hand shape a neck, free-hand route body binding channels, fit a dovetail joint and bend Honduras mahogany, it is no accident that each and every GC guitar they churn out (only 100 per year) is stunning in it’s clear rich sound quality and consistent in it’s clean build aesthetic.

Our Japanese builders had some very good teachers back in the day—In 1966 legendary Spanish luthier Eduardo Ferrer travelled to our Japanese custom shop to work with our craftsmen and teach them the trade secrets of Spanish guitar making. The fruit of this collaboration was the GC5, GC7 and GC10 guitars. Again in 1973, Yamaha craftsmen were visited by Manuel Hernandez,who brought with him the knowledge of the Spanish luthier craft.

Perhaps the most notable collaborator in our history was the Maestro himself, Mr. Andre Segovia. Segovia evaluated many early concert guitars and chose the now legendary GC71 to add to his large collection of concert guitars. He also selected a cedar top GC70 for his practice guitar at his cottage.

With international players like Baden Powell, Paco de Lucia, Liona Boyd, Eduardo Falu among others, Yamaha has always consulted with the finest artists to provide feedback on our guitars. It is through these close relationships that we are able to build master-grade guitars at a price affordable to most musicians.

We hope you enjoy playing your GC guitar as much as we enjoyed making it!