Violins and More of Lynchburg Enriches Local Music Scene with Expertise and Emphasis on Connection

By: Jeremy Angione / Photos By: Ashlee Glen

Tucked away into an unassuming storefront is Violins and More of Lynchburg, a local hidden gem that has been a haven for musicians all over Virginia. Owner Rachel Love says that her father, Allan Heer, took ownership of the store about 20 years ago.

After a stint in teaching, Love decided to join Heer as owner in 2019. Both father and daughter have a rich history in music. Love is a singer, choir director, and has been on the board of the Lynchburg Symphony for six years. Her father is an organist.

“My dad is very philanthropic and he loves music. One of the things that he loves to do is to go play piano for all of the concerts that the Lynchburg City Schools do,” Love said.

The storefront is small but tightly packed with stringed instruments, supplies to care for them, and everything in between.

As you navigate further into the shop, the space opens up into a large common area with several branching rooms that serve unique purposes.

There are a few rooms that are dedicated to violin lessons taught by local teachers who rent the shop’s space. Violins and More has a directory of local teachers available for lessons on their website.

In another more spacious room is a workshop clad from floor to ceiling with the bodies of violins in various stages of repair. The workshop is home to Sam Howell, Violins and More’s resident luthier.

“A luthier is a woodworker who specializes in stringed instruments. Stringed instruments are made of very old, dry, thin pieces of exotic woods connected together under extreme tension,” Howell said.

According to Howell, luthiers are an “odd mix of artist and engineer.”

While there are several schools that specialize in producing luthiers, Howell received his education through a collection of experiences including historical reproduction, custom millwork, furniture building, and his own musical acumen as a longtime cello player.

Howell considers his work to be more than just repair; he sees it as artistry. The look and feel of a violin is just as important to Howell as its primary function. The unique and delicate ingredients of lutherie, including the horsehair violin bow, all over Howell’s workshop make it apparent how much skill is required to do his work and why he is so sought after in Central Virginia.

“He [Howell] is one of the only luthiers in Central Virginia,” Love noted.

Love says that Howell’s luthier services currently have a three month waiting list. Violins and More supports the growing ecosystem of string players in the area.

All instruments are “rent to own,” which helps longtime students grow with their violin, from youth player to adult artist.

“A lot of these kids, who are dynamite little players—their parents aren’t ready to invest in an expensive instrument for them, but they have a really nice instrument that they can rent from us,” Love said.

According to Love, as a child player physically grows, it becomes necessary to fit them for a bigger violin. In her time owning the shop, Love has seen many young players grow in skill and into a full-sized violin, which she cites as one of the most rewarding aspects of her work.

Violins and More is a proud supporter of the Lynchburg City Suzuki Strings Program. The program offers free Suzuki Violin lessons in Lynchburg City Schools.

“It’s an amazing program that not very many cities in Virginia have. This is putting Lynchburg on the map,” Love said.

Violins and More helps to provide the students in the program with their instruments, making the shop a vital part of the life and growth of the program.
“This program is growing and growing.

We have the kids who come up through the City Schools playing violin, and then they have this amazing opportunity to play in a youth symphony,” Love stated.
While support for the Suzuki Strings program is a large part of Violins and More’s business, the shop also welcomes the musical community at large into the shop.

“Beginner’s Luck” is an ensemble program for adults who have some experience, but perhaps no grander ambition to play in a symphony or in other professional venues.

On Tuesday evenings, Violins and More hosts a free Talent Night for kids and adults to come into the shop and play musical pieces of their choice.
“Those are some nice ways we reach out to the community,” Love said.

Ultimately, Violins and More keeps the artistry of string music alive by engaging with its community of players.

“If you do rock climbing, marathon running, or biking, you can find your group in Lynchburg. There is an incredibly large community of string players in Lynchburg, but if you don’t play, you wouldn’t really know it,” Love said. As an owner of a family-run business, Love recognizes the role of family in supporting the arts.

“I love the people who come through the door. I feel like I’m part of their family. I feel like I have a service that can really benefit them. Being in partnership with my dad has been an amazing season of life,” Love said.

Currently, Love says that her hope is to help the Suzuki Strings program expand into neighboring counties so that students who don’t have the opportunity to play can receive free string instruction in school.

To learn more about Violins and More, visit violinsandmoreoflynchburg.com.

Every time I go to a concert, I notice the feeling of anticipation that builds as you get closer to the start of the show.

By: Charlotte Farley / Photos By: Becky Lambert Photography, Courtesy Of Seven Hills Chamber

That moment feels especially charged when it happens inside the historic Lynchburg Museum, where people registered to vote where they got married, and where the fate of defendants on trial for murder hung in the air.

On most days, the building feels quiet, with pieces of its past on display: artifacts, photographs, and other fragments of lives that once moved through the same streets we do. But in August, the Seven Hills Chamber Music Festival will open its summer concert series inside the museum’s main hall: the former courtroom of an 1855 building designed for voices to carry. 

Opening night will layer a Louis Armstrong tribute for trumpet and string quartet, Jessie Montgomery’s Strum, and newly unearthed music by Lynchburg-connected composers into a single evening.

“We have the concerts in what used to be the courtroom,” said museum director Ted Delaney. “We put the performers on the judge’s platform. And if you think about it, the building was designed for that—a group of people gathered to listen to something happening at the front of the room.”

He thinks about it a lot. “It lends itself so naturally to music,” he added. “Having live music performed in that space, to me, is one of the best uses of our very beautiful historic structure.”

Music that Lives in the Room

The Seven Hills Chamber Music Festival is heading into its sixth season this summer.
If you’re a music aficionado, that might bring a spark of excitement. On the other hand, you might hear the words “chamber music” and immediately picture old-world royalty having a private concert, seeing it as formal and untouchable—and you won’t be alone there. (Back in the day, I thought chamber music meant Gregorian chanting monks!)

In reality, chamber music simply means a small group of musicians playing together—often one player to a part—in spaces where you can hear and see every detail. It’s music built for conversation: between instruments, between performers, and, if it’s working, between the people onstage and the people listening. 

Seven Hills Chamber Music delivers a stunning Bach Brandenburg Concerto. And yes, there’s a sense of intimacy inherent to this genre with its smaller ensembles, closer quarters, and music that asks you to lean in. But Seven Hills is just as committed to contemporary work and performing (and sometimes commissioning) pieces by living composers. I still think about last season’s performance of Stir Crazy by Carlos Simon and the way the flute and violin captured, through sound, what so many of us were experiencing during that time.

More than a Venue: A Partner

For festival co-founder and Lynchburg native Dudley Raine IV, the museum concert started simply: try something different. “We had been playing in a lot of churches, and we wanted to find a space that felt a little less expected. The museum seemed like a great place to try it. We try to use Lynchburg’s history to build a theme,” Raine said, “to tell stories that might have been forgotten.” 

Working with Delaney, “he found a whole trove of pieces in the archives and we found pieces and composers I never would have known about otherwise.”

That was three years ago. Since then, the relationship has grown from “a concert in a cool building” into a partnership with its own rhythm.  

Festival co-founder Nicole Brancato helps shape the arc of each concert so the music, the space, and the stories all feel like they’re in conversation with one another. One past program drew on the story of Blind Billy and Tom Perkins, a local 19th-century fife-and-fiddle duo. To echo their sound inside the old courtroom, Seven Hills chose works for modern instruments carrying forward the rhythms that once floated over these same hills.

“It’s been really interesting to see the exhibits when we’re there and to start learning about Lynchburg’s history in a deeper way—especially the music,” he said. 

Over time, that curiosity has started to shape the concerts themselves. That curiosity led to more research, more local names, and an expanded program, this year supported in part by a Virginia Humanities grant. 

The Exchange of Energy

And then there’s the part no one can plan for: the energy the audience brings to the show.

“The last piece we did last year was [by] Kathleen O’Moore,” Raine said. “We gave the audience the music and had them sing along. It was incredible. Just this shared energy—everyone in the room participating. That was one of those moments where you think, ‘This is why we’re doing this.’”

For Delaney, that shift matters.

“Our mission is to connect people to local history,” he said. “But not everyone comes to a museum for that. Some people need a different way in.” 

Music, it turns out, can be that way in. 

“If someone comes for the performance, and that’s what brings them into this building, then they’re also encountering history,” he said.

A space once used for judgment, record, and decision-making is now holding something less about what was decided, and more about what can still be felt. “To have live music in that space,” Delaney said, “after everything that’s happened there—it’s really special.”

He hopes people walk back out onto Monument Terrace with a different sense of the city they just looked down on. “I want people to be so impressed that such beautiful music was composed here and that such talented composers lived here, walked the streets we do, lived in the same places we live, and work and go to school,” he said. “So many people discount Lynchburg and think, ‘Nobody of any note lived here, nothing important happened here,’ but I see the opposite. This concert is just one small way to have people see what we see.”

It helps that the music itself is anything but small. About half of the festival’s roster has roots in Virginia, and all of them bring serious credentials with them—players who have performed with major orchestras and ballet companies, on Broadway stages and at Carnegie Hall, with institutions like the Juilliard School and the New York Philharmonic, on HBO and Netflix, and at venues around the world. Some are voting members of the Recording Academy, some are Yamaha artists, and all are chamber musicians in the truest sense: collaborators who know how to listen as intensely as they play. When they gather in Lynchburg, the room is holding world-class artistry and hometown memory at the same time.

“I just couldn’t believe how good the music was,” Delaney said, remembering his first experience with this chamber music festival. “And thinking, this came from Lynchburg. Not from Europe or New York. From here.” 

On August 12, the room will decide again what it’s going to be. And if you’re there, sitting in that brief, electric pause before the first note, you’ll feel it happen.