Letter: Passing of Ivo Pires

by Mary Monteiro

Originally published in American Lutherie #99, 2009

Dear Mr. Peterson,

You may remember me — I contacted you a couple years ago when I was doing a Hall of Fame biography of my dearest friend, Ivo Pires.

It is with heartbreaking regret that I write to tell you of the sudden death on April 20 of my dearest friend, Ivo Pires. He has left the entire community in shock.

Did you know that he repaired Yo Yo Ma’s cello just before he went on his world tour? A couple weeks later there was delivered to his studio in the Berklee College of Music (Boston) a bouquet of flowers so big that everyone was in awe and couldn’t imagine who had sent it. Finally someone found the card and said, “Oh, Mr. Pires! It’s for you!”

As he was telling me this story, I said, “Ivo, what did you do with the card?” He didn’t know! It could have been a collector’s item. But being the lovable and unpretentious person we all knew he was, it never occurred to him. ◆