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Yabucoa.- Swept up by the sound of guitar strings at age 17, Carlos Iván Rosado-Ortiz from Yabucoa was pushed to venture into and learn the art behind making this instrument, until he eventually established the Yelaurabi workshop.

Rosado-Ortiz did not hesitate in investing all his efforts into knowing and mastering the instrument like the back of his hand.

“When I bought my first guitar years later, I realized that there was something wrong with what they call the frets, and I got stuck playing with that, with that bit that was too low,” Rosado-Ortiz said. He noted how he did not rest until he fixed the piece, and thus his curiosity to learn more was born.

It was then that he enrolled in a cuatro artisan building course, taught by Professor Rafael Avilés at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras.

“I told myself, ‘If I enroll in the course, then I’ll pay for the course and get a cuatro at the end,” the artisan laughed.

Upon successfully completing the course, he began making his first repairs and painting these string instruments. He is also a teacher in technology and engineering education at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Anita Otero Hernández in Humacao.

“I began with my friends’ guitars and instruments. I would visit them or meet them and notice something wrong with their cuatro and say, ‘give it to me, I’ll fix it’,” he recalled.

On a trip with one of his four children to Massachusetts, the artisan met William Cumpiano, a renowned artist in the field of stringed instrument making.

Rosado Ortiz’s talented hands and interest led him to receive a scholarship from Cumpiano for his classical guitar building workshop.

And that was how one thing led to another. After successfully completing the workshop, Rosado-Ortiz arrived determined to create his own workspace. He named it “Yelaurabi,” a combination of all his children’s names.

He has been operating Yelaurabi since 2012, on the ground floor of his home in Barrio Tejas, Yabucoa. From there, he not only makes the instruments from scratch, but fixes them too.

“Every issue is different, I don’t always face the same problem (...) I get a broken bridge. Sometimes something bigger, like a damaged fretboard, a damaged peg. All repairs are different, they’re a challenge,” the guitarist said of how much he enjoys when faced with having to adapt to the repairs needed when in his workshop.

Rosado-Ortiz said that most of his clients are people his friends know, and music students from the school he works at.

“There are many opportunities with this (repair and building stringed instruments) there are many possibilities. I think there’s a market for it. Because not many of us are working with this,” he said.

For information, please write to carlosivanrosado@gmail.com or call 787-484-8668.