INSIDE THE METZLER VIOLIN SHOP, INSTRUMENTS GET MASTER TUNEUPS.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis

Staff Writer

GLENDALE -- Two craftsmen sit at cluttered work benches, touching up the varnish on violins or restringing bows, as classical music plays in the background.

One of them, Teru Yoshioka, 47, is originally from Japan. The other, Alex Loskutov, 30, was born in Cuba, but came to Southern California by way of the former Soviet Union, Mexico and Italy.

Both have found a home at the Metzler Violin Shop in Glendale, where it takes more than just a love of music to succeed.

"We definitely all are free spirits here," said cellist John Oshita, 38, who also works at the shop.

"I think those are the ones who survive," he said. "It's a lot of fun, but there's a lot of detail work and we have to deal with strong personalities, from stressed-out parents to professional musicians."

The free spirits who work at Metzler's have all come from different directions.

In the precision craft of violin making and repair, it takes an international network for a shop like Metzler's to not only get violins to sell, but also the craftsmen to work on them.

Shop owner Thomas Metzler, 57, found Yoshioka through instructors at a school in Chicago where the Japanese student learned his craft. In the case of Loskutov, the connection came through a friend of a friend.

Born in Cuba to parents from the former Soviet Union, and raised in the country of Georgia, Loskutov moved Mexico City as a teenager with his parents because of political instability in his home country.

Loskutov played with his father in a Mexican symphony orchestra. But he left the pressures of orchestra life for something else -- violin making -- and he went to Italy to learn the craft. He also worked alongside expert violin makers in Cremona, Italy, where famed violin maker Antonio Stradivari plied his trade more than 300 years ago.

Yoshioka is known in the business as an expert varnish retoucher. He received a degree in economics in Japan, but decided that was not the field he wanted to pursue.

So he learned to play the violin.

Yoshioka, who is always quick to joke, said he started learning how to make violins because he wanted to make a Stradivari-quality violin for himself.

"I didn't have money to buy those, so I said, I can make it," Yoshioka said. "I can't. I'm sorry. So I started playing tennis."

Yoshioka comes into work on Fridays with a bag and two tennis rackets. His opponent is another violin repairman.

After hours hunching over violins, using fine sable brushes to retouch the varnish, Yoshioka said he likes the release of a good tennis match.

"This kind of work all day, and every Friday night: explosion," he said.

Metzler, 57, the store's owner, was born in Wisconsin, but had to travel to Germany to study violin making, even though he spoke almost no German.

Metzler's wife, Barbara Don, works with him at the shop, and his daughters are both musicians. As for himself, he said he has no plans to retire.

"Most violin makers," he said, "die at the bench."

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

818-546-3304

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) At the Metzler Violin Shop, Alex Loskutov, above, works on replacing the strings of a bow. At right, standing, shop owner Thomas Metzler watches Turo Yoshioka repair a cello. The two employees arrived at the Glendale store by way of the former Soviet Union and Japan, respectively. Metzler studied his craft in Germany.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer