[gentle violin music]
- Angela: Music.
It's considered the universal language.
- If you can communicate something
without saying anything at all,
it's just... it's a magical world, I guess.
- Angela: A world Rose Vincent's been in tune with
for most of her life.
- I was 12 years old, and my parents said,
"Well, you get to choose your instrument."
And I thought violin sounded pretty cool.
But after a couple days, I told my mom, I said,
"This what I want to do for a living."
She laughed. [bright violin music]
- Angela: It was the start of a lifelong dialogue for Rose.
- I wanted to be a performer,
and I wanted to learn to improvise.
- Angela: Even if the conversation is always changing.
*
[gentle acoustic guitar music]
- I got started in violin restoration
when my violin in college
started to have some structural problems,
and a very kind person offered to teach me how to fix it.
- Angela: Rose is a luthier, [Rose tapping]
someone who restores and rebuilds string instruments.
- Rose: They have to function, not just,
you know, paint a pretty picture.
So they have to be able to express when they're done.
That is the goal.
[lathe scraping]
- Angela: She works alongside her husband John
at their shop in downtown Eau Claire.
Together, they've restored hundreds of violins,
some centuries old.
- One of the oldest we've got rolling right now
is 1711, Georg Arman from Augsburg.
That's a really neat instrument, and it's really messed up.
[brush scraping]
- Angela: For Rose, it's like lending an ear to an old friend.
- It never gets old when you hear them for the first time.
I can be the first one to hear it in maybe a hundred years.
And that's pretty cool.
- Angela: But what happens when what you're hearing
suddenly changes tone?
* Stay away from me
* You're causing me trouble
* It's been that way
* Since from the start
- Bluegrass is like playing Bach at 200 miles an hour
and composing it on the spot.
[lively bluegrass music]
- Angela: Rose was recruited from the chamber orchestra
by a local bluegrass band.
- Bluegrass was an absolutely new experience.
I had never done anything like that before.
It scared the heck out of me.
[lively bluegrass music]
It's extremely complex.
It's extremely difficult.
It was, in a way, more difficult than playing classical music,
because it was set out there to react that quickly
and interact with the harmonies that other people are creating.
It's just a real complex dance, which is really, really neat.
- Angela: When she's not mending violins,
Rose travels the country, now playing bluegrass.
- Well, I found out I loved being on the road.
Absolutely loved it.
You've met so many people along the way,
and also it made me a better violinist, in general
because there's such an emphasis on rhythm
and collaboration that it just rounded everything out.
[bright violin music]
- Angela: Even when the tempo keeps changing for Rose,
the language stays the same.
- I think the best thing you can feel is that
you've completely emptied everything out of yourself
to give to the people listening.
[lively bluegrass music]
Sometimes, it just knocks you over,
like, "Wow, this is really awesome."
*
[audience applauding and cheering]