Michel Bélair – 2022 Doubletop No. 58

Description

Michel Belair is an immensely talented Canadian luthier with an excellent educational background in music. As a former student of Alvaro Pierri and Roberto Aussel, he earned a master’s degree in performance at McGill University and continued his guitar studies in Paris. When he commissioned his second guitar from Daniel Friederich, the desire to build his own guitars struck him. He then learned the basics of guitar making from luthier Jean Rompré. Thereafter, he refined his skills with Olivier Fanton D’Andon, the renowned Parisian guitar maker, and benefited from the expert assistance of Daniel Friederich. Following in his footsteps, Michel naturally adopted not only a very similar construction method but also Daniel Friederich’s philosophy and scientific approach to guitar building.

This brand new 2022 Michel Belair is the first double-top guitar we present from Michel, and what an instrument! The lightness and responsiveness of this guitar are outstanding, and paired with Michel’s exquisite level of craftsmanship, this guitar is, in our opinion, amongst what’s best in terms of double-top guitars at the moment. The sides are doubled, as Daniel Friederich did, yet very thin so that they still participate in the overall vibration of the guitar but provide an extra in terms of projection and volume. A spruce fan bracing à la Bouchet combined with a light cedar/nomex/cedar double-top makes this guitar a powerful, complex, and rich concert instrument.
Check out the presentation video of this specific guitar below in which you will find plenty of extra information about its playability and sound.