The Story of Michelsen Music

It all began back in 1982, when Dan Michelsen, a young band director in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, lost his job due to budget cuts in the Reagan recession.

Appalled by the lack of service and quality of repair work available to Upper Peninsula band directors and students at that time, Dan decided that it was up to him to do something about it. He began repairing instruments out of his home in Marquette, MI that very year, and by the next fall was offering an instrument rental program. Michelsen Music Repair & Supply was born!

Dan took his new job seriously. He became a regular at annual NAPBIRT (National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians) conventions, where he was quick to learn the secrets and tricks of the trade. Before long, he was improving upon established techniques and inventing new ones of his own.

Dan spent long hours in the shop in those years, but his hard work and perseverence paid off. These were years of steady growth for the business. In 1986, Michelsen Music became an official music store, opening its first retail location on Third Street in Marquette, MI. Dan's reputation as an excellent repairman and honest businessman led to his unprecedented success despite the U.P.'s Spartan economy.

Before ten years had passed, Michelsen Music Repair & Supply had outgrown its Third Street building, and the search was on for a larger space. This materialized in the form of the Lowenstein Building, a historic two-story former department store in downtown Negaunee, a few miles west of Marquette. Dan moved both Michelsen Music and his young family into the building. While continuing to grow the business, he managed to complete a large portion of needed restorations himself, with the help of his wife, Anne.

In the early 2000's, in the face of a declining school-age population in the U.P., Dan and Anne began to discuss expanding the business someplace with a more vigorous economic outlook. After researching their options, they opened Michelsen Music's second location in the Wausau, WI area in the fall of 2006.

Michelsen Music continues to serve both the central Upper Peninsula and north-central Wisconsin from both locations, proudly continuing its tradition of excellent school music service and supply.