Mike Anderson remembers hanging out with his best friend in the 8th grade and hearing him play an original song. Mike was hooked and wanted to focus on music and worked on it every day. ...
Christian Benker has been an influential leader in the German musical instrument manufacturing industry. With fresh ideas and marketing skills he helped Hofner reinvent itself during the ...
Gerhilde Benker served as president of Hofner Music, a firm founded by her grandfather Karl Hofner in 1864 in Eger, Germany. Her father, Walter, was the inventor of the Hofner bass, which...
John Connolly established the Connolly Music Company (originally Connolly & Co., Inc.) back in 1970. Best known for distributing such brands as Thomastik-Infeld and König & Meyer,...
Dieter Fischer comes from a family of luthiers and started working for Höfner in Bubenreuth when he was 14 years old. He continued working for the next 56 years for Höfner, of which 30 ye...
Uwe Kruger grew up singing old German folks songs with family in Switzerland. Picking up the guitar at eight years old, he later played with his brother, Jens, on street corners. His love...
Ernst Lang married Paula Prüller 1958 in Luby, Czech Republic, formerly named Schönbach, and both came from families involved in the production of musical instruments. Ernst Lang’s father...
Paula Lang’s father, Andreas Prüller, owned a company in Schönbach producing purflings for violins, cellos and guitars. After World War II, the Czech government started nationalizing prod...
Earl Matzkin was arrested by the East German Army in 1985 for trying to pass the Berlin Wall that divided the country without the needed visas in order to visit the Petrof Piano Company. ...
Paulo Nogueira is the co-owner of Americo Nogueira LDA along with his brother José. Their store in Portugal originally opened in 1860 and in 1947 their father began working at the store. ...
Herbert Riedl was born into a family of violin makers and grew up on the street where Höfner produced guitars including the world-famous Beatles bass. With his friends he earned money sta...
Wolfgang Schnabl is a luthier in Bubenreuth, Germany and has been particularly successful in creating cellos. After learning the craft at the state vocational school for instrument making...
Klaus Scholler is the President of Karl Hofner GmbH & Co KG, established in 1887 and now celebrating its 125th anniversary. Over the years Höfner has produced many ground-breaking ins...
Ewald Sommer’s grandfather, Ignatz Sommer, started building machine heads for stringed instruments in 1911. Early on, he supplied Höfner with his products for basses, guitars, mandolins, ...
Norbert Stumpf was elected the mayor of Bubenreuth in 2014 and actively promotes the legacy of his town as an important center for stringed instrument production. At the end of World War ...
Joachim Winter is the president of the Jakob Winter Company, a family business since it was established in 1886. The company supplies accessories like cases and violin bows, as well as a ...
