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US school repair shops: close to home

2026-03-13T10:08:00

Cherry Creek - Alan with bass

In US public school music programmes, broken instruments can harm students’ learning and create stress for teachers. Rita Fernandes discovers the schools that are tackling the problem head on by offering free repairs via in-house repair shops

‘Anything can be repaired – it’s just a matter of what you’re willing to put into it,’ Douglas Lindsay, an instrument repair technician at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Musical Instrument Repair Shop tells me. Up to 10,000 instruments come through the shop’s doors every year, and yet Lindsay talks about each one with the care of a luthier examining a Stradivari. The instruments are played by the students of the district – the second largest in the US – and the repairs are completely free. It is an operation that is as remarkable as it is rare…

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