Violin shop finds new home on Lorna Road

There’s a new place in Hoover where you can learn to play the violin or cello.

Village Violins and the Suzuki Talent Education Program relocated from Birmingham’s Southside in January to a spot at 3201 Lorna Road in Hoover, a little south of the Hoover Police Operations Center.

The location formerly was home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Village Violins sells and rents violins, violas, cellos, bows, strings and covers, but much of their focus is on teaching people to play, said Troy Bast, who is director of the Suzuki Talent Education Program and a business partner of owner Mara McClain.

About 115 to 120 people take lessons there, Bast said. Most are children and youth, but there are probably 15 to 20 adults who take lessons as well, he said.

Kids who sign up get weekly private lessons, nine group classes each semester and group performances about twice a year, Bast said. Most of the adults historically have taken private lessons only, but there now are about 12 adults taking a group cello class that meets once a month, he said.

The kids start as young as 4 years old and go all the way through high school, Bast said. About a dozen of the students tried out and made the Alabama All-State Orchestra in Tuscaloosa in February.

There are 12 instructors in the Suzuki Talent Education Program at Village Violins, and all but one have some connection to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra as members or substitute players, Bast said. 

Dana Flynn Schneider, whose 13-year-old daughter Sydney takes violin lessons there, said it’s a privilege to be able to learn from instructors of that caliber.

The Schneiders moved from Chicago to Homewood about four years ago, and Sydney, a student at Advent Episcopal Day School in Birmingham, started taking violin lessons as a way to connect to her friends in Chicago who also play violin, her mother said.

The Suzuki studio in Chicago recommended the one at Village Violins, and her daughter loves it, Dana Flynn Schneider said. Sydney takes the private lessons and group classes, and there are opportunities for the kids to perform in front of each other and at recitals, she said.

When they go see the Alabama Symphony Orchestra perform, their instructors are there and will share what they’re doing and do what they can to help their students, Dana Flynn Schneider said.

McClain first opened Village Violins in Birmingham’s Forest Park community in 2009, and her husband, Avi Friedlander, started the Suzuki Talent Education Program there, Bast said.

They outgrew their location and moved to 18th Street South on Birmingham’s Southside in 2014, but the owner of that building decided to sell so they had to find another place, Bast said.

McClain and Friedlander actually moved to Chicago this past summer, when Friedlander was hired as director of the Barston Suzuki Center at the Music Institute of Chicago. McClain still owns Village Violins and handles certain administrative duties, but Bast is a business partner and on-site director.

The move to Hoover has gone well so far, Bast said. While it’s not as convenient for some of the instructors who frequently rehearse at the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, it likely is more convenient for many of the students and their parents who live in suburbs south of Birmingham, he said.

Plus, the building McClain acquired works well for their purposes, he said. It has the violin shop, five teaching studios and a space for group performances and rehearsals. The location also feels safer than the one in Birmingham’s Southside, he said.

The violin shop side of the business mostly consists of rentals because children tend to outgrow their instruments until they become teenagers, Bast said. There is not a lot of inventory in the Hoover store, but McClain’s father runs a violin shop in Atlanta that has hundreds of instruments, he said.

Purchase prices start at about $900 for violins and $2,000 for cellos. Rentals are $24.70 a month for violins and $42.10 a month for cellos and include maintenance costs. Renters can build equity toward a later purchase, he said.

For more information, go to villageviolinsbirmingham.com.