John Schultz has turned his passion for the violin into a thriving eastern Iowa business. John and his wife Rebecca founded and operate Schultz Strings, a Cedar Rapids business that “provides exceptional string instrument service, sales, rentals and instruction to eastern Iowa and beyond through our highly accomplished team of string specific professionals.”

John and Rebecca launched their business out of their Mt. Vernon home in 2009. “We had 8 violins hanging in our home closet. Before we knew it we had violins piled up in most rooms! We purchased a bigger house hoping that would solve the problem, but the violins kept coming!”

Today Schultz Strings located at 1190 Twist Town Road NE, Cedar Rapids offers instrument repair and restoration, rentals, student through professional instrument sales, lessons from 14 teachers, chamber music, master classes and performances. They service about 30 music programs in eastern Iowa representing over 150 teachers and thousands of students.

John Schultz began violin in the Waukesha Public Schools in Wisconsin during 4th grade. “I was really taken by the fiddle tunes the teachers played at the demonstration and wanted to learn how to do that.” He was not serious about violin until the end of high school when he started to take private lessons. “I then started to play 6-8 hours a day and fell in love with the violin.” John went on to earn a Bachelors of Arts and Master of Music from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he studied with Dr. Myron Kartman and performed as a member of the Arreaux String Quartet. 

John’s crown jewel is an amazing early violin made in Brescia, Italy around 1550. It’s a prototype of what would become the modern violin. “It came to us when its previous owner could no longer play and the violin needed a new home. We did a full restoration on the violin which took 18 months to complete. It’s a spectacular example of early violin making.” This is the violin that John is playing in the photos below.

The thing John loves most about his job is “working with an amazing team, getting to know amazing teachers across the state and midwest and seeing the joy on students and players faces when they make music!”

This Artisan project has focused on people who produce something of value in limited quantity with their hands. John and his entire team are true artisans. They restore valuable instruments, make beautiful music with a whole variety of stringed instruments and introduce others to the instruments and music that they truly love.