1. Blaise Kielar Biography
David Blaise Kielar grew up playing violin in orchestras and clarinet in marching and
concert bands at Sun Valley High School, Aston, Pennsylvania. Then known as Dave
Kielar, he received a degree in music from West Chester University in 1974, where he
explored everything from Baroque performance practice to electronic composition with
Moog synthesizer. He pursued a doctorate in music history at NYU, where he specialized
in interdisciplinary Baroque arts and the 19th
century New York composer George
Frederick Bristow. Not finding a college teaching job, he changed career paths (with help
from the book What Color Is Your Parachute?) and learned the skills of bow rehairing
and restoration at William Moennig & Son in Philadelphia.
In late 1978, his Southern roots (born in Virginia) called him to a more laid back lifestyle,
and he opened a violin shop in Chapel Hill, NC. His partner in Hillmusic Fine Violins, R.
Nowell Creadick, taught Old Time fiddle and banjo, and Blaise began to realize a long-
standing dream to fiddle. Soon there were weekly Celtic sessions at Hillmusic, and a
group formed of the regulars. They called themselves “De Mairt,” which is Gaelic for “on
Tuesday,” the night of the gathering. Shortly after that, Blaise formed a swing trio, where
he also got to play clarinet. He began to get more comfortable with improvising, and
found that his classical playing became more relaxed. He gave lessons in classical violin
as well as various fiddle styles.
For 15 years he managed the violin shop, and helped many beginners and professionals
find the perfect instrument or bow. During this period he got divorced and shifted to
using his middle name, Blaise. He studied the classic French methods of bow making
with William Salchow. His electric violin journey began around 1986, when Hillmusic
was an early dealer of Zeta violins. Blaise retired from Hillmusic in 1993, after rehairing
more than 3000 bows!
Participating in one of Paul Winter's Living Music Villages changed Blaise’s life.
Besides further freeing up his improvisational abilities, he got hooked on gathering
players (and non-musicians) together to make spontaneous music. The beauty of the
music created, and the closeness of the community of those participating, inspired him to
develop a course called "Improvising Music For Everyone." Designed to help people get
comfortable with the infinite possibilities of vocal and instrumental improvisation,
Blaise’s course aimed to liberate everyone from the need to "play it right."
Blaise joined the National Association of Music Merchants and attended the NAMM
show in January 1999, before the May opening of Music Explorium in Carrboro, NC. He
retailed easy to play, creative and unusual strings, winds, electronics and hand
percussion, and hosted workshops designed to inspire the musical adventurer.
Community response inspired Blaise and his wife Cathy to study drum circle facilitation
with Arthur Hull. Their regular community rhythm circles still offer folks of all ages and
abilities a forum to jam together, creating their own magical musical world – every time!
Blaise is not shy about bringing a violin into the drum circle, either.

2. By 2002, the rising demand for electric violins prompted Blaise to found Electric Violin
Shop (EVS) as a specialty division of Music Explorium. He and his staff had been
discovered by people around the world who needed someone with expertise in the violin
family as well as electronics, technology and non-classical musical styles. EVS began to
outpace Music Explorium, and EVS exhibited at its first American String Teachers
Association (ASTA) conference in Dallas in 2004. The shop has steadily grown since its
move to Durham in 2005, and often hosts out-of-towners trying the wild variety of gear
for amplifying violins, violas, cellos and basses. At last count, EVS had shipped to 83
different countries, 50 states and to all 7 continents!
Road to Making a Co-op
In 2007 Blaise joined The Alternative Board (TAB), where he was coached to write a
detailed operations manual, and was introduced to the idea of an exit strategy. As time
passed, he took pride in how well his employees assumed power in their areas of
leadership. He slowly let go of selected managerial duties, choosing to stay focused on
overall strategy and vision, while continuing to do payroll and bill paying. With
retirement in mind, he spent several years unsuccessfully looking for a buyer.
After he started consulting with Anne Claire Broughton of Broughton Consulting LLC,
more creative ideas began to emerge. When Anne Claire mentioned the idea of
converting to a co-op owned by EVS staff, Blaise’s jaw dropped and he asked, “Is that
possible?” Anne Claire provided the first referrals to experts in the community enterprise
movement and to financial institutions that loan to workers for co-op conversions, and a
year later, the transaction was complete! EVS is now a worker owned co-op, free to
develop ever better ways to serve players of amplified strings.