A Trip to Lafayette to see SoLa and Anya Burgess
The John Salyer fiddle probably isn't worth a lot of money, but it is a valuable part of the history of old-time music, so I decided it's restoration should have extra special care. I reached out to the Old-Time Fiddlers group on Facebook and got lots of suggestions. Suzy Thompson suggested Anya Burgess at SoLa in Lafayette, and Suzy said, "Good excuse to have a trip to Lafayette". The more I researched Anya, the more I became convinced she was the best choice. I learned that Anya after growing up just outside Boston, Massachusetts, completed a violin-making program at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She then worked with a luthier in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. After talking to Anya on the phone, I knew a trip to Lafayette was in our future. In Lafayette I was expecting a dusty backyard violin repair shop but instead found the beautiful storefront on SoLa in downtown Lafayette. Anya opened up the fiddle and let me look in...