Les ateliers
Between Paris and Provence, the company Mathieu NEVEOL - NEVEOL & Fils , through its founder, specializes in the manufacture of violins.
A graduate of the INDIANA UNIVERSITY of Bloomington in the United States in violin (class of Mauricio Fuks) and in violin making (class of Tom Sparks and Dereck Coons), Mathieu Névéol, super soloist violin of the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Saint-Etienne is responsible for the workshop, in which he creates and shapes violins in collaboration with Régis Névéol, his father.
Uncompromising expertise where the love of music instills a precious vital impulse that enhances the gesture and creation of each Névéol violin.
In 1990, Mathieu Névéol studied music at the Bordeaux Conservatory and built his first violin at the age of 9 with his grandfather, Abel Névéol.
Thanks to his expertise and the transmission of an unwavering passion for his work with materials and wood, Mathieu Névéol discovered his vocation as a luthier.
L'histoire
Discussion around a violin in progress with Abel Névéol aged 102.
The legacy of a family treasure
Sensitized from a very young age to a musical universe, the maternal lineage linked to the making of instruments and decorative arts pushes Mathieu Névéol to curiosity. The activity of painter from father to son transmitted to his grandfather Armand Minet sensitizes him to the graphic arts.
He becomes the heir to a precious reserve of authentic and rare materials, a treasure composed of earths, resins and pigments, mythical varnishes stored since the end of the 19th century in the family workshop. Today unobtainable, a Bombay linseed oil from 1913 and the memory of stories from his ancestors will be the starting point of many tricks and secrets of a varnish recipe.
Thanks to research into wood treatments and a solid knowledge of a family varnish recipe acquired alongside his father Régis Névéol, the culmination of a sound dream becomes reality.
Family workshop of A.Minet in 1877.
A craft work
The emergence of new technologies and the use of digital machines for a large production of violins by the greatest number of current luthiers and manufacturers does not correspond to the artistic and philosophical approach desired by Mr. Névéol. In the constant quest for a recreation of a sound ideal, after many years of reflection and several decisive meetings, he decides to produce only two violins per year.
For over 15 years, he has been questioning himself every year and it is at the heart of the manufacturing process of these two instruments, meticulously shaped and elaborated, that Mathieu Névéol expresses himself with fervor and passion for the love of music and the demands of the musician's profession. A work of the material for which the ear and the secular heritage of the gesture remain his best allies.
