Akio Hiyoshi

Akio Hiyoshi was on the engineering team at Yamaha in 1959 that designed the Electone Organ, which brought the small piano manufacturer into the electronic musical instrument market, where they would become dominant for decades.  The team also worked on the Clavinova, the CS 80 (Yamaha's last analog product) and developed the digital division for Yamaha. Akio recalls the special day that Stevie Wonder came in the factory to help review the early prototypes of the DX7.