Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job by Elizabeth F. Fideler

Author:Elizabeth F. Fideler [Fideler, Elizabeth F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442222755
Amazon: 1442222751
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2014-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Michael Avsharian, age eighty-two, is a classically trained violinist who prefers teaching young people to performing. He is also part of the three-generation executive team that runs Shar Music Company’s showroom, workshop, and warehouses in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Shar is the go-to place for strings, instruments, bows, cases, bags, and other essentials for musicians. Michael vows to continue working “as long as I’m alive and can do it.”

Profile: Michael Avsharian Jr.

At age eighty-two, Michael Avsharian Jr. works full time at Shar Music Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where, as executive vice president, he oversees purchasing and does “general troubleshooting.” When I called to interview him, he was busy in the warehouse.

Today, Shar’s showroom, office, workshop, and warehouses are family run by three Avsharians—Michael Jr.; his younger brother, Charles; and Charles’s son, Haig. However, it was Michael Avsharian Sr., an émigré from Armenia by way of Turkey in the 1930s, who started Shar Music Products in 1962 as a small discount mail-order company selling strings to string players. He got the idea from Michael Jr., who had discovered that buying violin strings overseas cost less than buying them at local music stores. Charles took the idea one step further by proving to his father that symphony orchestra players were eager customers; professional musicians had little or no access to the variety of strings they needed in those days, except for those living in a few major cities. Michael Sr. set up shop in his house, offering low prices and quick turnaround service (trademarks of Shar Music to this day) and soon was calling on Michael Jr. for help. Ever self-effacing, Michael says, “I only gave technical advice. My father was the entrepreneur with the native talent. He was fond of saying that none of his earlier business ventures could compare to Shar, that he had his greatest success once he retired.”

Here’s where the technical expertise came from. Although Michael’s parents were not musically trained, they loved music and raised two sons and two daughters who all were accomplished musically. Michael studied violin in his youth under pioneering music educator, violinist, and conductor Elizabeth Green, who had fortunately relocated to Ann Arbor. And, at the Meadowmount School of Music summer camp in New York State, he studied with renowned violin teacher Ivan Galamian, considered the greatest violin teacher in the world in the second half of the twentieth century. Elizabeth Green ultimately incorporated Galamian’s teaching and playing strategies into an instructional textbook that became a best seller. In it, virtually all of the illustrations feature the hands of prize pupils Michael Jr. and Charles.

Michael went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Juilliard and a master’s in violin performance from the University of Michigan. He then embarked on what he thought would be a long and satisfying career teaching classical violin at the University of Oklahoma and at the University of North Texas. Eight years into his university career, when his father unexpectedly needed help with the start-up company,

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