Bill Pritchard played in a military band while serving the United States for over 20 years. When he retired, he took up what he had loved to do during his service, repairing band instrume...
Eberhard Rahm started out as a flute maker in 1976 and was in charge of the former Erlbach Flute company. 1991 Schreiber & Sons put him in charge of the production, when they opened...
Nick Rail is the president and founder of the retail string of stores in Southern California with his namesake that began in 1986. Nick began his career as a band instrument repairman for...
Larry Ramirez had a fascinating career in music! As a trumpet player he landed his dream job designing instruments for many of his childhood heroes! While working for Leblanc, Larry was a...
Eric Satterlee founded Meridian Winds in 1984, in Lansing, Michigan. The store specializes in wind instruments and has a very innovative repair shop. In fact, the repair shop is the bir...
Johannes Scherzer was a world-renowned master trumpet maker who spent much of his long career with JA Musik Group in Markneukirchen, Germany. His passion for the instrument contributed to...
Gunter Schmalfuss has taken great pride in working on one instrument most of his career, the tuba. Since 1961, Mr. Schmalfuss has studied, built and designed tubas in addition to teaching...
Patrick Selmer is proud of his family’s long and important history as instrument makers in France. The company produces many of the finest band and orchestra instruments in the world and ...
Willie Smith was trained on instrument repairs on the plant floor of the Conn-Selmer factory in Elkhart over 30 years ago. He began working in the music industry with the Vincent Bach Co...
Jim Stella began playing the trumpet in the fourth grade, continued through college, and attended instrument repair school immediately after. He began working for Leblanc in the Martin Ba...
John Stoner came into the music products industry as an outsider when he joined the Conn-Selmer team in the early 2000s. As a father of a band student, he took part in fundraising and sup...
Dave Surber’s father was a United States Navy musician who worked for the Leblanc Company after he retired from the navy. When Dave was looking for a job his father found one for him in ...
Ronnie Tennant first began playing cornet when he was nine years old. His father joined a brass band when he was about the same age and, in 1952, his father joined the Army Band. Ronnie w...
Michael Thomas grew up in Los Angles where he took to music at an early age. He formed a swing band and became a professional musician. Along the way he began making his own valve oil a...
Charles Urban knows horns! As the former president of American Plating, he has worked with the top brass instrument makers to perfect the art of plating instruments. Chuck is also very pr...
Dennis Ward takes great pride in the work he does making musical instruments! He began working in the music industry with Vincent Bach in the 1970s and remained with the company in the e...
Roberto Weingrill Jr. spoke during his Oral History interview about the early days of his family’s business and the many changes that have occurred over the years. His great-grandfather m...
John Welch was the president of Sofia Violins, which is an American-made instrument company based in Indianapolis, Indiana. John’s incredible life in music began as a child when he was cl...
Denis Wick was only 25 years old when he became the principal trombonist for the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). Over the next 30 years, he played with the LSO and other world class orch...
Stephen Wick's father Denis is a well-regarded classical musician. The passion for music growing up remains with Stephen to this very day. Together father and son work in the company Den...
Dave Woodruff began working for King Band Instruments right out of college. He began in the personnel department and Human Resources before becoming involved with the production of the i...
Roger Zehr worked as a trumpet tester for the Vincent Bach brands of horns, beginning when the company was on its own and later when it was purchased by Selmer and when it merged to becom...
