COLORADO SPRINGS — For nearly four decades, Juan Mijares has been helping connect music to the folks of Colorado Springs via his work distributing, repairing, and crafting stringed instruments.
Owner and operator of Mijares Violins and Repair, Juan's daily life is filled with re-stringing various instruments, performing repairs, buying and selling, and hand-crafting his own pieces; he estimates he's probably created nearly 100 instruments over the course of his career, but has certainly connected hundreds more to music through his work.
One of the aspects he loves the most about the job is helping to start someone on their own musical journey.
"One of my greatest joys is to see little kids come in and [I'll] get them their first violin, and then they grow up and I get them another violin," commented Mijares.
"Now, we get parents coming back who were those little children, and now they're coming back with their own kids and starting their own kids all over again."
This luthier's story began when he was in high school, "I had wanted a nice guitar," stated Mijares, "but nobody was going to buy me one, so I decided to figure out how to make one."
Following the acquisition of relevant reading material and some advice from a local maker, Mijares was able to construct several instruments before taking the next step in his education and heading to the Violin Making School of America where he would achieve his degree as a luthier.
After graduation, he spent some time working at various shops before making the move to Colorado Springs and establishing his business in approximately 1987.
Mijares says the work of creating stringed instruments (guitars, violins, cellos, violas) hasn't changed much over the past few hundred years, "We try to really do it using the same methods that were used 300 years ago."
The overwhelming reason for this, is the constant effort to draw ever nearer to the work done by those great luthiers of the past.
"The really beautiful, great, desirable violins were all made in the old-fashioned way, so you can't make it any better."
If you would like to learn more about Juan Mijares and his work with stringed instruments, you can visit his website here.
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