For years, Creek has been going to local music shops to repair damaged school instruments. But last year, CCSD established an in-house repair shop, in hopes of saving district money and providing an easier solution for the district’s band and orchestra directors.
“I’m a big fan of the whole concept of a district investing and paying the salaries of in-house repairmen and providing them a place to repair school instruments,” band director Tim Libby said. “This is such a huge cost saver. And I’m a fan of those guys, because they’re really dedicated to the schools, and they’re willing to go above and beyond when you need their help.”
The shop, run by technicians Alan Davis and Jeff Eisold, is based at Overland. It’s fitted with compressed air, hot water, and all the tools they need to operate.
Davis is happy the shop can open more avenues for new musicians to play, without being encumbered by their instrument.
“Having an in-house repair option for students has many benefits, the largest of which starts with getting good working instruments into the hands of students from day one so they can learn uninhibited,” Davis said. “Learning to play a musical instrument is hard enough and trying to learn on a broken instrument can make the experience bad for a student which often leads to them quitting.”
Previously, Libby would take instruments to Kolacny Music, a local shop. When Kolacny closed permanently in Sept. 2023, CCSD needed a new solution.
CCSD Director of Electives Paul Cribari, with Davis’s advisory, funded the shop within the short window before Kolacny’s inventory had to relocate. He hired the two technicians directly from Kolacny’s workshop, as well as much of the store’s inventory of tools and instruments. Normally, it would cost upwards of $120,000 to outfit a shop. They got all the materials and instruments on clearance for $10,000.
With such a small cost, CCSD could focus on the shop’s extensive benefits. Such as the $185,000 extra saved by in-house repairs.
“When an instrument is sent into a local shop for repair, the teacher and student are at the mercy of that shop,” Cribari said. “It can take weeks, and even months, to get it back. Additionally, not all shops do the same quality of work. With the quality of work that our techs do, we are able to ensure that every repair is to the highest standards.”
When sophomore Simon Baer needed to use Creek’s English horn for Wind Ensemble’s Fall concert, Davis and Eisold only had a week and a half to finish the job.
“The English horn hadn’t been used for a while, so it had some leaking keys and also had broken cork on the pads,” Baer said. “The repair people tried fixing it, then brought it to the school. It still wasn’t working, so they went back and tried fixing it again, at which point it worked.”
“Their service was outstanding because we brought it to them only a week and a half before our concert,” he said. “Normally it would take them longer than that to get to it, but because we had a concert, they prioritized it and got it done in time.”
Jobs just like Baer’s English horn come up daily, but that doesn’t mean Davis and Eisold’s jobs are boring.
“Rarely in this line of work do I find myself doing the same thing over and over, each day brings new instruments and new problems,” Davis said. “More often than not I’m working on something new every day, on Monday I might be cleaning a marching baritone and by the end of the week I’m taking a saxophone apart.”
But Cribari isn’t done. He wants to turn the shop into a learning experience, to earn students CTE credits alongside the pros.
“Now that the shop is up and running, our hope is that the next phase will involve an education component,” Cribari said. “Qualified repair techs are getting harder and harder to find, and it’s our hope that very soon we will be able to offer training courses for students and adults to learn the basics of instrument repair, inspiring a new generation of folks dedicated to learning this trade.”
CCSD is one of four districts in the country that has a service like this. Libby believes Creek should take pride in that.
“We need to support it, because it’s unique, and it’s a huge cost saver for the district, and it’s an awesome service,” he said.
Though work on band instruments is most common, they also work on orchestra instruments daily, too. Eisold brought expertise from a long career as a technician and has acted as a mentor for Davis, who was fresh out of repair school in 2023.
Cribari is proud to have qualified professionals on the job, in the most accessible place for the district.
“We as a district are so lucky to have had the opportunity, the means, and the support of administration to make this happen,” Cribari said. “I also can’t understate the importance of the techs. Jeff Eisold and Alan Davis are the exact right people for this shop and we couldn’t do it without them.”
