Lisle Violin Shop

Mark  Lisle founded Lisle Violin Shop along with his wife Margaret Lisle in 1984 as a music educator who had dealt daily with the struggle to maintain the condition of his student’s stringed instruments. As a music educator for many years, he saw firsthand how difficult it was to have a successful orchestra program without the support that a good music shop provided.  Out of necessity, he took a course in violin repair and studied the subject extensively to begin to rehabilitate the many instruments that needed repair at his school.  Soon this became a part time job in and of itself. He taught at Southmore Intermediate in Pasadena ISD in the daytime and worked at a small music company the rest of the time to maintain Pasadena ISD’s instruments. Soon the shop he worked at closed and he realized that orchestra directors would be left without adequate support. The time had come to bring his dream to reality to open a shop to serve the needs of the orchestra community. His dream soon took shape and he opened Lisle Violin Shop in June 1984 as a place where students and educators could come to get quality instruments, rentals and repairs at affordable prices. In 1994, Lisle Violin Shop opened a second location in Rice Village which later was moved and expanded to become our Bissonnet Street location in 2001. In 2004, our service area was expanded to include Central Texas. Lisle Violin Shop opened its third location in Katy, Texas in 2012 and in 2017, opened a fourth location in Northwest Houston on Louetta Road to better service customers in this rapidly expanding area of Houston.

For over 35 years, our mission at Lisle Violin Shop has been to further the success of all string players beginning and advanced so that their lives are enriched through musical learning and performance and all the physical and mental benefits that result.

We do this by…
• Providing resonant, well-adjusted instruments for beginners to make the learning processes as easy and rewarding as possible.
• Allowing exchanges to larger and better instruments as the player progresses.
• Offering a plan that allows parents to accrue credit through multiple instruments so that when a student is ready for a lifetime instrument, that purchase is affordable.
• Providing excellent instruments to school orchestras so that performance levels are enhanced for all students and that all purchases are good investments of taxpayer dollars.
• Providing excellent professional level repairs for all, including and especially students and schools and for the professional development of our staff.
• Encouraging the present art of violinmaking for our staff and for the future.
• Making every player, young and old, feel special and important in every relationship with our shop.