Mo Menzel puts the strong stamp of her personality upon Menzel Violins, while retaining the core of its traditions.

Mo has introduced several innovations since her arrival here. She hosts free performance workshops and master classes where prominent local musicians serve as clinicians. Instructors include Bernard Lurie of the Hartt School of Music, Ariana Bronstien, Gene Lowinger, and Dave Rimelis. Mo has also implemented on-site lessons by a fine violin teacher, Eva Sheha.

Mo is passionately involved in local charities. In Texas she was a volunteer in St. Luke's emergency room and cardiac wards. In New Jersey, American Heart Association, the Livingston Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, and the National Council of Jewish Women are among the organizations for which she raises funds. Mo arranges impromptu musicales at local nursing homes where friends of the firm play. When the Cherkassy Committee in the Ukraine needed instruments for their educational programs, Mo donated violins.

One of her creative efforts is the Art Strings project for the New Jersey Symphony's outreach program for inner city schools. For the past three years, she donated unfinished violins for local certified artists to use as their canvas. Calendars and raffle tickets for the project can be purchased at Mo's. The drawing is set for June. "Divine Insportation" (left) is by artist Robin Robinson of Trenton, NJ.

On occasion, a customer will come into the store with a violin for which repair costs total more than the value of the instrument itself. Mo suggests donating these instruments to needy schools in Newark, NJ and the Cicely Tyson School in East Orange, NJ.