Located on the upper floor of an unassuming house at 792 Gladstone Ave., the afternoon sunlight catches the flames of carved and polished wood. Bent over their work, a pair work tirelessly at creating new violins and repairing old ones.
That pair is Guy Harrison and his assistant, Charline Dequincey. Harrison, a well-known Centretown luthier, discovered his trade and passion when he was 13 years old and living in Australia.
He would eventually move to England, where he trained for three years at the Newark School of Violin Making, later apprenticing with other violin makers in Europe before practicing his trade on a third continent.
Harrison settled in Ottawa where he opened his own studio to build and repair violins, violas and cellos.
Harrison welcomed Centretown News photographers into his workplace to talk about his centuries-old trade. Aside from better glue and gentler clamps, he talked about what has changed in violin making over the years and, more interestingly, what has remained the same.
