Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes.

The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud both descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was probably the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompanying instrument, especially in vocal works, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a written-out accompaniment.

The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any string instrument) is referred to as a luthier.

The words "lute" and "oud" derive from Arabic al‘ud (العود; literally "the wood"). Recent research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests ‘ud may in turn be an Arabized version of the Persian name rud, which meant "string", "stringed instrument", or "lute". It has equally been suggested the "wood" in the name may have distinguished the instrument by its wooden soundboard from skin-faced predecessors. Gianfranco Lotti suggests the "wood" appellation originally carried derogatory connotations because of proscriptions of all instrumental music in early Islam.

René Mésangeau (or Mézangeau, Mesangio, Mésengeot, Mesengé, Meziniot, Meschanson, Mesangior) (fl. 1567–1638) was a French composer and lutenist. He is considered to be one of the finest lutenists of the 17th century.

In 1619, he settled in France and married the daughter of the spinet maker Jean Jacquet. In 1621, he was appointed musicien ordinaire du Roi at the French court by Louis XIII. It is known that during his life, he visited Germany and England. He died around January 1638 in Paris.

His output consists of about fifty works, including his own works and transcriptions, which were influential in the development of lute music after 1630. He is an author of the new D minor lute tuning that was important for the style brisé. His achievements brought him recognition by Pierre Ballard (1631 and 1638) and by Marin Mersenne in his Harmonie Universelle (1636).[1]

His pupil, Ennemond Gaultier, composed the first known tombeau (Le tombeau de Mézangeau, 1638) for him.

William Lawes (April 1602 – 24 September 1645) was an English composer and musician.

Lawes was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire and was baptised on 1 May 1602. He was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral at Salisbury Cathedral, and brother to Henry Lawes, a very successful composer in his own right.

His patron, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, apprenticed him to the composer John Coprario, which probably brought Lawes into contact with Charles, Prince of Wales at an early age. Both William and his elder brother Henry received court appointments after Charles succeeded to the British throne as Charles I. William was appointed as 'musician in ordinary for lutes and voices' in 1635 but had been writing music for the court prior to this.

William Lawes spent all his adult life in Charles's employ. He composed secular music and songs for court masques (and doubtless played in them), as well as sacred anthems and motets for Charles's private worship. He is most remembered today for his sublime viol consort suites for between three and six players and his lyra viol music. His use of counterpoint and fugue and his tendency to juxtapose bizarre, spine-tingling themes next to pastoral ones in these works made them disfavoured in the centuries after his death; they have only become widely available in recent years.

Edin Karamazov is a renowned Bosnian musician-lutenist (born in 1965 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina). He studied lute with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

He worked with such ensembles as Hesperion, L'Arpeggiata, Hilliard Ensemble, Mala Punica, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and singers Andreas Scholl, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Arianna Savall, and Sting. Karamazov's solo archlute recording features Benjamin Britten's "Nocturnal" and J.S.Bach's Partita in d-minor (orig. for violin).

Recent collaborations with Sting (in the field of 16th century music) resulted in the album and film Songs from the Labyrinth, devoted to the lute-songs of John Dowland.

Karamazov's 2008 solo CD project on DECCA "The Lute is a Song" includes guest appearances of Sting, Renée Fleming and Macedonian singer and songwriter Kaliopi.

Robert Lawrence MacDonald (born September 5, 1978) is a Canadian mixed martial artist. He appeared on The Ultimate Fighter 2, a reality television show which aired on SpikeTV.