La Jolla Music store scores new owner, new address
BY SHELLI DEROBERTIS
La Jolla Music will move to a larger building across the street at 7423 Girard Ave. to provide three additional rooms for music lessons.
The expansion is set for the end of August, but the plans started out on a different note a few months ago when David Woo, a six-year La Jolla resident and member of the La Jolla Town Council, noticed a “store closing” sign in the music shop’s window.
Woo said his daughters had taken lessons at La Jolla Music, 7442 Girard Ave., and he couldn’t believe that the only music store in town was going to close.
“So many kids rely on the store for renting their instruments or purchasing accessories for their instruments,” Woo said.
The shop has been in existence for 50 years, according to owner Janine Ryder, who has managed the company for 15 years.
When it was time to renew the lease for another five years, Ryder said she was not well enough to do so. “I started liquidating with great sorrow,” she said.
Enter Woo who said he talked to Ryder, and learned she could not find a buyer. “I decided to save the store,” he said.
La Jolla Music is now La Jolla Music, LLC, and Woo said with a little help putting together the corporation and perfect timing of the building for lease across the street, “it all worked out nicely.”
As the new proprietor, Woo said the shop will continue to rent instruments and sell sheet music. It will also offer 10 practice rooms, a group-lesson room, and a band practice room.
Ryder said the store has been as asset to La Jolla serving children who take music lessons, teachers who buy sheet music for their students, and school programs that count on La Jolla Music to have good quality instruments.
“Fortunately, David decided to save the store for the community,” she said.
For more information, call (858) 459-3375
- Jaw-Xin Wang will become the new store manager -Photo by Pat Sherman