June 25, 2021
Abbas Selgi, 57, owns Terra Nova Violins, a high-end shop in Austin, Texas, where he sells, rents and repairs classical instruments some valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He came to the US from Iran in the mid-1990s, years after his family fled the country in the wake of the Iranian revolution. A trained luthier a maker of stringed instruments he’s worked his way up from operating out of his San Antonio home’s garage to opening two shops in Austin.
After weathering the pandemic and with schools and their musical programs reopening, Selgi said business is reviving. Now, he said he’s focused on getting his two sons trained in the profession to eventually take over the family business.
Selgi told the San Antonio Express-News, “We are a military family. After the revolution, we came here because the revolution was not too nice to us.”
In 2006, he said, “I had a really good business plan and I put everything in a paper and gave it to the Small Business Administration. And the SBA gave me a pretty good loan to start with. And that was the thing. I couldn’t do anything without the SBA. Starting, we got almost half a million dollars. But it’s an expensive business to start, and when we started we had a very small inventory.”
He said he was an instrument-maker in Iran. “Since I was 18, I was working on instruments with a luthier.” But Selgi fell into that line of work almost by accident. “One of my neighbors was an instrument maker and he needed help and he asked me. And because the revolution happened, and also the war between Iran and Iraq, my father didn’t want me to go into military service. That’s why we were held in the house, we couldn’t go out or they could capture us and send us to the war. That’s the reason we didn’t have choice. I was in the basement working on instruments all day. And in those days, instrument-making was illegal in Iran. If they captured you, you knew you were getting a big punishment. That’s why we were in the basement. It was tough days for musicians.”
He said his brother was an Air Force pilot who trained in the US and married an American. He returned to Iran after his training and fought in the early years of the war but then deserted and came to the US. “After that, my mother and brother joined him and I was alone in Iran until 1996. My mom applied for a green card for me and I came. I was almost 32 years old.”
He said, “The first job I got was a busboy. I cleaned the floor, cleaned the dishes. The first day, I didn’t know anything and my English was so bad I couldn’t communicate with people.
“The first week, I said, ‘I don’t want to stay; this is really tough.’ My brother said to just give it a little time. And after a month or so, I got more relaxed and found a local business and worked for them as an instrument repairman. And I saw it as an opportunity to work and grow here.”
Now he is in his 60s. “I’m getting old. I’ve worked hard here, and I want to retire as soon as possible. That’s my goal. That’s the reason I want my kids to go to a school of instrument-making in Italy and want them to become among the top makers in the US. His sons are 18-year-old twins, Sepand and Sepas.
