Turrentine Elegy N-60 Concert Classical Natural, 2019 /*No Longer Available*

Seen here is a Turrentine Elegy N-60 concert classical built during 2019 in the shop of Zebulon Turrentine, in the Tennessee Appalachian mountains.

The Turrentine Elegy N-60 features a Red Cedar top, lattice braced with strategically placed carbon fibre bars. The back is African Wenge, with a Red Cedar interior lamination, while the sides are a three-layer laminate of Wenge, Maple and Cherry. This type of lamination was first introduced by Jose Ramirez III as a way to control ‘wolf tones’, and since has been seen to improve focus, projection and tonal separation.

The neck is African Mahogany, with a raised Ebony 640mm fingerboard – in reality, the body tapers down, resulting in the raising of the fingerboard on a Mahogany base. The body and neck are assembled with an internal bolt system, making future service or relief adjustments fairly simple, if required. The tuners are Gotoh 35G510P models with black buttons. The fretwire is Jescar EVO Gold, larger and harder than regular fretwire but not quite as hard a Stainless Steel.

This wonderful guitar also sports a component that’s been missing from guitars since before the start of the 20th century – a Tornovoz, a small conical construction extending into the guitar from the soundhole. The purpose of this component is to emphasize bass tones and aim the sound towards the audience. This was used on many guitars built by Antonio de Torres.

This example was built during 2019 and is in very good condition with only very light wear and a few minor marks to the French Polish finished top. The rest of the guitar uses gloss nitrocellulose lacquer. It plays very well, has a full, rich and focused sound, and is one of the loudest nylon string guitars I’ve ever played.

Here is the builder on the Turrentine Elegy N-60:

“Elegy is built to be a modern, dependable tool for the concert hall. It uses a solid, cedar soundboard voiced for a traditional timbre using my own method of lattice bracing. The goal is for a fundamental resonance that remains salient and rich in the toughest performance settings, but not overly warm and “muddy”. Clarity, balance and voice separation are key attributes of Elegia and I work very hard to ensure that it is both very responsive and resilient over time. “

Sold with a black arched top hard shell case.