“Internationally renowned violin maker and instrument conservator Rodrigo Correa-Salas has been responsible for maintaining, reviewing, overseeing and preserving all 13,000 instruments and objects at Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum for just over four years,” writes Sofia Krusmark in Sunday’s (3/20) Arizona Republic (Phoenix). After working “in Panama as the chief luthier … for orchestras across Central America … in July 2017, Correa-Salas received a call from Manuel Jordán, deputy director and chief curator of MIM, the world’s largest global instrument museum, inviting him to interview in Phoenix to be the museum’s conservator…. Correa-Salas was born in Santiago, Chile…. His grandpa was the orchestra conductor for the Santiago Symphony Orchestra. His mom danced professionally…. After graduating from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, Correa-Salas was accepted into Indiana University’s violin making program … in string instrument technology…. In Puerto Rico, Correa-Salas … opened and ran a violin shop where he repaired and restored violins [and later] was appointed custodian of [Pablo Casals’s] cello…. He later became the official luthier of the Festival Casals of Puerto Rico…. ‘To be able to restore an instrument that is unplayable to a place where it can play again … fills me with satisfaction—and joy,’ Correa-Salas says.”
Change font size
