Opus 31 Cutaway Steel-String Guitar |
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his Cutaway Presentation guitar designed by Jean-Claude Larrivée is similar to his Larrivée Body model. The lower bouts are slightly wider and the sides slightly narrower than on the "Dreadnought" guitar. Built for the Opus exhibition, this instrument has a powerful, well-balanced sound and features original inlays.
Jean-Claude Larrivée Jean-Claude Larrivée North Vancouver, British Columbia, 1992 A native of Montreal, Jean-Claude Larrivée studied guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto in the mid-1960s and learned the luthier's craft under Edgar Münch. After five-and-a-half years of intermittent apprenticeship, including a stint in New York working with Manuel Valasquez, Larrivée opened his own workshop in Toronto in 1968. From that time on, he built around thirty guitars a year and significantly influenced the development of guitar making in Toronto. A number of his apprentices are now respected luthiers, with a reputation for fine craftsmanship. Larrivée moved to Victoria in 1977 and then to North Vancouver in the early 1980s, where he established his current workshop. After visiting a number of assembly-line instrument workshops and studying quality control methods, Larrivée organized his workshops with a view to boosting output. Twelve employees work entirely by hand, producing instruments which Larrivée is convinced are of superior quality. In his view, workers who specialize in one phase of production become better than anybody else at what they do. Jean-Claude Larrivée's clients include many Europeans, Japanese and Australians, and famous guitarists like Bruce Cockburn and Eugene Martynec.
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