Nicolas Legault-Cavallaro

A native of Mont-Laurier in Quebec’s Hautes-Laurentides region, Nicolas began his studies at the age of 17 at Quebec’s École national de lutherie. He was then welcomed by bow maker Richard Compartino, where he rubbed shoulders with Joel Tardif and Guillaume Schönau.

In 2006, Nicolas opened his first workshop in Sainte-Anne-du-Lac, where he began a long-standing collaboration with Montreal luthier Olivier Pérot to promote and sell his instruments. Nicolas has taken part in several advanced classes at the Banff Center of Art and at the École de lutherie Basque de Bilbao in Spain (with Horacio Piniero, Jonathan Woolston, Philip Ilhe and Gabor Draskoczy).

In 2008 he was awarded first prize, ex-aequo with Isabelle Wilbaux, for a violin at the competition organized by Jeunesses musicales du Canada. In 2016, he was a finalist for violin and viola at the Santa Cecilia International Violinmaking Competition in Rome.

Since 2010, Nicolas has been based in Colombia (South America), more precisely in Guatavita, a small village located at an altitude of 2600 meters in the Andes Mountains, where he devotes most of his time to making quartet instruments. In 2022, he also opened a repair and customer service workshop in the historic center of the capital Bogotá.

Nicolas has built over 120 instruments, used by professional musicians and soloists in Europe, North America and South America.