A Luthiers Life

Linda Manzer has been designing and building world-class flattop and archtop acoustic guitars since 1974 and she studied with master luthiers Jean Claude Larrivée and the late James D’Aquisto. Linda builds flattop, archtop and harp guitars plus her creative journey has given birth to many cutting edge innovations including in 1984, the “Wedge”, an ergonomic tapered guitar body shape originally designed for the renowned 42-stringed Pikasso guitar and available on all models since. Other interesting instruments include the sitar guitar, the fretless nylon archtop guitar and harp guitars with as many as 52 strings. Manzer collaborated with Pat Metheny on building a very special limited edition model - 30 only The Metheny Manzer Signature 6 limited Edition to celebrate her 30 year collaboration with multiple Grammy recipient Pat Metheny. Manzer's guitars have also been played by Bruce Cockburn, Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Simon, Milton Nascimento, Carlos Santana, Gary Larson, Henrik Andersen, Stephen Fearing, Marie Lynn-Hammond and Julian Lage. Her guitars have been displayed in the Smithsonian, Washington D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and are in the permanent collection of the Canadian Museum of History and most recently in the McMichael Art Collections in Kleinburg Ontario, where she led the Group of Seven Guitar Project in 2017. That project commissioned guitars from seven world-renowned Canadian guitar makers in homage to the Group of Seven painters, plus a collective guitar built to honour Tom Thomson, who painted alongside the Group of Seven in the early part of the 20th century. Most recently she has spearheaded the Sunflower Guitar for Ukraine project. A guitar she built to raise money for humanitarian aid for Ukraine that is currently journeying through the hands of musicians and artists to its eventual home in Ukraine.