Local Violinist Touches Heartstrings: A Story of Resurrection
By Dana Greyson
The Dalles, Ore., April 28, 2026 — A century-old violin that sat silent for decades has found its voice again in The Dalles, thanks to local musician Jeremy Clawson.
Jeremy restored the instrument after it was given to him by a friend whose father had recently died. The violin, once filled with cheatgrass and sporting broken strings, had not been played in roughly 76 years.
Now named “Phoenix,” the instrument recently made its public debut, marking its return to music after decades of silence.
“Considering this beautiful baby has been resting for seventy-six years, I thought it was fitting for her name to be Phoenix,” Clawson wrote in a March 25 Facebook post.
The Dalles: A Place A Musician Now Calls Home
The Journey
Jeremy’s move to The Dalles in 2025 came as a result of love and desperation.
His fiancée offered to move to Baker City, where Jeremy lived. No, he told her, The Dalles is your home, your community. You have a good job here.
Meanwhile, Baker businesses were unwilling to pay a living wage for a violinist. So Jeremy migrated west to The Dalles for his two loves—his fiancée and to revive his musical career in a town that enthusiastically embraces music with businesses willing to pay an adequate income.
Jeremy first picked up the violin when he was five years old. He started with lessons from a college professor and continued with her through high school, then transitioned to online master classes. He was “still a kid—probably in sixth or seventh grade” when he started playing at weddings professionally. By high school, he was playing regular venues. He didn’t know then it would become a career. He just knew he enjoyed it and wanted to keep doing it.
“Music is part of me,” he reflected.
His mom was pessimistic until recently. “You need to have another job,” she told him. “Full-time; one that pays the bills.”
He worked full-time jobs.
“I was fine at it, but I didn’t love it,” Jeremy said. “I kept feeling like I was missing what I should be doing whenever music was on a back burner.” His part-time gas station job still kept him from doing his gigs. That was the turning point; he quit the gas station job and committed himself one hundred percent to working in music and never looked back. “Music is the one constant in my life. Something is missing when it's not my main gig.”
Jeremy plays a wide variety of music. He understands that different audience members often have different—and conflicting—preferences.
“I can’t make everybody happy all the time,” said Jeremy. “So I blend it and shuffle it to give everybody a little of everything. I do my best to please my audience as much as possible.”
“Residents, staff, and visitors all look forward to seeing Jeremy’s name on our calendar,” reports the Activities Department at the Oregon Veterans Home in The Dalles. Jeremy regularly performs live music there for a diverse group of residents—including veterans with varying levels of cognitive and physical ability. “His music brings joy, creates a calming and uplifting atmosphere, and often sparks connection. His impact is significant.”
Elizabeth Green and her husband, Robert—a resident of the Veterans’ Home Memory Care—are among Jeremy’s fans.
“Jeremy is a gifted violinist,” Elizabeth said. “My husband Robert is mesmerized by Jeremy’s playing, as are others. Jeremy’s adorable puppy, Blue, also loves to hear him practice and accompanies him to gigs whenever possible.”
“Jeremy answers audience questions clearly and thoughtfully, takes time to help listeners understand the variance in tonal depth and richness by demonstrating different violins, contrasting the use of different strings and bows.”
His willingness to teach and ability to educate have brought him a devoted following at the Veterans Home.
“He makes each performance delightfully unique,” she said. “I have also heard Jeremy perform as part of a community orchestra and as a soloist at a memorial service. “
Striking a Chord with the Past
When Jeremy met longtime member “Joe*” at Gateway Church, Jeremy told Joe he was a violinist.
Editor’s note - Joe is not his real name; he prefers to remain anonymous.
“My dad was too,” Joe replied. “But he hasn’t played for years.”
Joe’s dad started playing at the tender age of three and was in his nineties at the time when Joe met Jeremy. His dad’s violin came from the old country when the family immigrated to The Dalles from Germany. The violin’s origins were murky. Joe wasn’t sure how his family could have afforded a violin; they were farmers, dirt-poor.
So Joe was sure it wasn’t worth much.
Joe’s dad played that violin in a quartet at The Dalles High School. The last time he played publicly was 1947; he was sixteen. Joe’s dad got to know his mom while holding his violin on the long bus rides from their family’s wheatfields to their school in The Dalles.
Joe did not know if his dad serenaded her with that violin, but they made sweet music together in the form of a family. Joe’s siblings recall that there was one last time their dad played—for them—a lullaby, sixtyish years ago. Yet that violin traveled with him, from house to house, through five moves—all in Wasco County. Through the decades, it sat in its case in the closet, unopened, unplayed. Until….
Phoenix Takes Flight in Song: the Gift that Gives Back
When Joe’s dad died in late 2025, Joe showed Jeremy his father’s violin. Jeremy opened the case. It hadn’t been opened for sixty years. All the strings popped, and cheatgrass seeds fell out.
“It’s a project,” Jeremy told Joe, undaunted. Driven by curiosity, Jeremy tinkered with restoring violins before. He imagines a sound in his head that he thinks the violin should produce. Then he picks his brain and changes parts until he can get that sound.
Jeremy put in an order to replace the broken strings with new ones, but in the meantime, hijacked the strings off one of his other violins.
Initially, Jeremy thought he’d pass the violin on to a student—something he’d done before—but once he replaced Phoenix’s broken strings, he liked the sound so much, he couldn’t let her go. “Give it to me, and I’ll play it at church,” he promised Joe.
This was Jeremy’s first major violin restoration, which called for opening up seams—separating the rib (side) of the violin from the back to do internal repairs. That level of repair falls into professional luthier work; it’s a delicate process, as if it’s not done right, it can crack the fragile wood. He got a how-to demo, then went to work.
Drinking up good Vibrations
“I was just gifted this 100-year-old violin,” Jeremy posted on Facebook after his first playing of the instrument.
He was elated.
“Tonight she sang!!!” he said. “Considering this beautiful baby has been resting for seventy-six years, I thought it was fitting for her name to be Phoenix.”
No one knew if Joe’s dad’s violin ever had a name. Jeremy owns two other violins named by their Hood River maker. As their “adoptive parent,” Jeremy kept their names, Fiji and Nuaru. Phoenix is the first violin Jeremy got to choose the name for.
At Jeremy’s first professional gig, Phoenix’s A string—a string where a lot of music is played—broke. Normally, Jeremy would have a backup violin and a full set of backup strings.
That night he didn’t.
Instead, initially, he played in a higher position on the two lower strings.
“… it freaked me out,” Jeremy admitted. “I almost ended it. But people were there specifically to see me play on that violin.”
Eventually, Jeremy picked more mellow songs with a slow, sweet melody. That worked.
Phoenix doesn’t have the range that new violins do, so Jeremy can’t play it when he plays in the Columbia Gorge Sinfonietta. However, in addition to playing at church and some local venues, thanks to Phoenix’s new venue, she will sing at weddings at the coast.
Jeremy played a personal concert at Joe’s house on Easter. There were thirty folks–across five generations—ranging from a one-year-old to Joe’s mom, in her nineties. He played a little something for everyone, from Disney tunes to Christian music.
Joe got choked up, reminiscing.
“Jeremy’s performance pulled at my heartstrings,” Joe said. “Everyone’s thrilled they can hear Jeremy play Dad’s violin anytime, since we recorded the performance on our phones.” Jeremy also played at the church, and Joe’s whole family went to hear it: his mom, wife (who also played the violin), sisters, and grandkid. Jeremy played an impromptu six songs after the service, too.
Since Jeremy restored Phoenix, other church members are digging out their formerly abandoned violins and considering resurrecting them, too.
“Every violin deserves to shine and be the best that it can be,” Jeremy said. “It’s possible a ‘then’ $200 violin that’s been sitting around for a few decades… might be worth a couple of thousand today. A violin ages well if taken care of, kind of like people,” he explained. “As wood matures over time, it sounds better.”
Jeremy believes violins, in particular, inspire feelings and emotions. Still, he admits that not every violin is financially viable to save. If repairing it costs more than half to three- quarters of the value of the violin, and there is no sentimental value, it may not make sense to restore, he advises.
Gabriella Redmond
Playing It Forward
Giving violin lessons is also part of Jeremy’s main gig. Eleven-year-old Dallesport resident Gabriella Redmond is one of his students.
A Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert inspired Gabriella to learn to play the violin. Gabriella’s mom, Michelle Redmond, contacted Jeremy, who helped her find a violin Gabriella’s size. Gabriella’s only been playing since July 2025, but Michelle is pleased with her progress, especially when she recently played Pachelbel's Canon in D Major—Michelle and her husband’s wedding song. “Jeremy’s a great teacher,” Michelle said. “Accommodating, good with kids, and comes to Dallesport to teach Gabriella.”
While going solo doesn’t pay even close to what professional orchestra musicians make, between his gigs and providing music lessons, at thirty-seven, Jeremy now considers himself financially solvent.
“I’m not rich, but I make what I need…and then some,” Jeremy reports. “Mom is proud that I’ve made that happen.” As is his fiancée.
Despite the challenges of making it as a musician, Jeremy believes learning music is well worth it. He tells aspiring musicians, “Don’t hesitate. It will still benefit you emotionally and mentally overall. The skill doesn’t go away.”
There is one musical dream Jeremy has yet to make a reality—a local, self-sufficient string academy to make music more broadly available. He attempted an initial test drive here with some group lessons but was unable to build enough momentum to take it to the next step. Maybe, someday….
How to Connect with Jeremy’s Music
In The Dalles, Jeremy typically plays weekly on Fridays at the Portage Grill restaurant, Saturdays at the Grill Steak and Seafood restaurant, at Gateway Church on Sundays, as well as for residents at the local Veterans’ Home. You might find him at occasional pickups, like bluegrass at Second Street Wines. He’s also the first violinist with the Columbia Gorge Sinfonietta, performs at weddings and other events throughout the Pacific Northwest, gives private lessons, and restores violins. He can be reached by phone at 541-406-8372, on Facebook as Jeremy Clawson, or via email at jclawsonviolinist@gmail.com.
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