Kendra Peterson is the retail manager for Ward-Brodt Music in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The store was established in 1927 and has built a strong reputation for service, particularly for schoo...
Beth Chouinard Mitchell, with a Doctorate from USC in tuba, musicology, conducting, and arts leadership, may be diminutive in stature, but her instrument of choice is anything but small. ...
Tracy Vignati and her husband Fabrice formed a band together using a style they call Gypsybilly! They debuted their band, The Vignatis, in 2009. Tracy describes their style as a blend of ...
Craig Denny loves band rental night so much, partly because he remembers the own experience as one of his most meaningful. He was eight years old and the team at Quinlan & Fabish Musi...
Barb Schotanus learned the clarinet while in the Catholic Band Program as a young girl. She enjoyed the program so much that she earned her music education degree at DePaul University and...
Phil Rovner was having some trouble with his intonation as a saxophone player, and decided to design a new approach to attaching the reed to his mouthpiece. As an engineer, he had the kno...
Lynn Reeder did not become actively involved in music until her mid-40’s after receiving a gift certificate for voice lessons from her husband George and son Alex, although an avid listen...
George Reeder and his wife, Lynn, are the owners of Rovner Products, which produces ligatures, mouthpieces and other accessories for musical instruments. The company was established in th...
Dallas Smith began playing the clarinet at the age of eleven. By the time he was in high school he was in an all-star group and later focused on classical music throughout college. His l...
Charles Owens has always believed in the importance of music education; after all, his own career began while attending the University of San Diego. As a result, Charles kept returning to...
Denny Coiro spent over 40 years of his career in the piano industry. As a salesman, Denny worked for several stores over the years and had some wonderful experiences bringing a new instru...
Paul Baronnat started singing in choirs beginning at the age of eight. As a singer of the permanent choir of the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra, he was approached by RCA to work for its cla...
Thomas Schreiber, grandson of Wenzel Schreiber, today runs his own repair shop and takes care of the woodwind instruments of several music schools in the region of Frankfurt. After an app...
Cornelia Kinzelmann is CEO of ESM which produces mouthpieces for clarinets and saxophones. Cornelia remembers her grandfather, Wenzel Schreiber, from the time when she was a child. Wenzel...
Mark Kortschot is a Professor of Engineering at the University of Toronto who was approached by Guy Légère with an interesting idea in 1997. Guy wanted to make a synthetic reed for the cl...
Emilio Lyons would often have his well-known customers such as Stan Getz and Benny Carter meet him at his home whenever they needed work done on their saxophone. Emilio was the manager fo...
Barbara Honig found out about the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music when she joined their New Horizons band - a band that offers learning new instruments and playing in a concert b...
John Stavish and his sister took over the music company their parents established in the early 1950s. John recalls the first milestone of the business was when it moved out of the family...
Theodore Johnson was playing in the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra when he began to think of ideas that would improve his clarinet's mouthpiece. Over time, he designed his own mouthpiece a...
Anthony Ortega was a mainstay on the west coast jazz scene beginning in the 1940s. Growing up in Watts, Anthony (known as Tony) went to school with and was exposed to many of the era's Lo...
Jody Espina had a long history as both a musician and educator before deciding to launch his own line of saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces. Jody honed his playing at a young age before m...
Kenji Chiwaki followed in the footsteps of Toru Hora as the president of Buffet Crampon Japan. Hora-san opened the branch in Tokyo in 1967 and helped establish the brand within the Asian...
Toru Hora was classically trained on the piano and attended Juilliard. He joined the Buffet Crampon company in 1964 and both established and served as president of the Buffet Japan branch...
Hirokazu Kato took part in the innovative engineering team at Yamaha in Japan who utilized FM Synthesis to create an electronic musical instrument, first the TRX prototype and then the re...
Phil Passin began working for Carl Fischer in 1947 in the shipping department, where he took a deep interest in the industry. After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Phil ret...
Giorgio Clerici is the son-in-law of Cosimo Pomarico, the classically trained clarinetist who in 1960 began making his own unique mouthpieces. Mr. Pomarico developed a crystal mouthpiece...
Riccardo Clerici is the grandson of Cosimo Pomarico, the classically trained clarinetist who in 1960 began making his own unique mouthpieces. Mr. Pomarico developed a crystal mouthpiece,...
Robert Fleming has been a long time member of NAPBIRT, missing only a few annual meetings during his long career as a repairman. He worked with Pete Valentino on how plastics could be us...
Gary Shanholt began working on the bench at Selmer in Elkhart on Main Street back in the 1970s. He continued to work for the company after it merged with Conn, becoming Conn-Selmer. Gar...
John McCrea was born and raised in Billings, Montana, where he first discovered his passion for music. He played the clarinet and was inspired by his band director to teach music in publ...
Ralph Zumpano worked in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, Leblanc plant most of his professional career. Ralph married Vito Pascucci’s sister and was alongside Vito from the very beginning of the o...
Don Getzen sure knew the history of the band instruments made in the mid-west! Don’s father was the plant manager for the Holton Company in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, his oldest uncle was the pl...
