Jim Quist: Musician, owner of Quist Violins

How did you become a musician?

I started playing the violin when I was 8 years old. My school in Seattle was doing the strings program. I come from a musical family. My dad is a jazz pianist. His mother was a church organist as a career, and he always had music playing in the house. So, I just found that I enjoyed the sound of the violin, came home [and] said, ‘Dad, I got to do this.’ He went out and he bought a violin, which was not easy, because we didn’t have a lot back then.

How did you decide to come to Bellingham?

Before Bellingham, we lived in Utah, where I met [my wife] at college going to Brigham Young University. She was a Washington gal, and my childhood was spent in Seattle, so we decided we wanted to go to Washington again.

We ended up here in 1989, and I hung my shingle out — started teaching privately at a private studio. At the height of my teaching part of my career, I had about 60 private students. I was teaching in the school, as well, as a coach for string classes. I taught school for a year here in Bellingham, and then I purchased the shop.

You’ve been running Quist Violins since 1995, what do you enjoy about it?

I never get tired of it. Every time that I get new instruments in, I just get excited about it. I still enjoy it. I enjoy teaching. It’s something I’ll do more of, I hope, after I retire from the business end of the shop. Teaching has always been a part of what I do.

How does it feel to help provide instruments and lessons to dozens of young musicians in Whatcom County each year?

We’ve always been a really strong supporter of the music programs in Bellingham. There are some who will go into [music] professionally, but just the whole development of the child is affected with music. They’ve proven that with many studies; it just improves everything. It engages both hemispheres of the brain in a way that other subjects don’t.

I think it’s a way of giving back to the community, something that we believe strongly in. Also, it’s a joy. Life without music is just unimaginable to me.

Do you prefer the classical side or the folk side when playing the violin?

I like them both equally. When I play classical, I play on the viola, and when I play violin, I play fiddle music. I really enjoy both. I started fiddle after I moved here because I put my ad in the paper as a teacher. Someone called and said, ‘Do you teach fiddle?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do,’ but I didn’t play the fiddle. I figured I could learn it quick, and I immediately bought a fiddle book and I started listening.