Yoshi Kobayashi began working for Yamaha Corporation of America in 1958. In the early days of his career he was tasked with supervising the import and export of the motorcycle division. ...
Keisuke Kobayashi is the Director and Chief Marketing Officer for Audio-Technica in Japan. His long and very interesting career in the music products industry started when he began worki...
Dan Kobida was first interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program back in 2004 during the Wurlitzer company reunion in Oak Brook, Illinois. Dan was not only a respected former employee o...
Martin Kobza is an instrument designer for the Petrof Piano Company, located in the Czech Republic. His unique skills as a piano designer and his knowledge of the strong company history,...
Barrie Kolstein has proudly followed in his father’s footsteps as a noted authority, builder and restorer of fretted musical instruments. His father was an expert repairman and bow maker...
Martin König’s father, Karl, partnered with Erich Meyer in 1949 to create a wholesale business in which their first products were music stands. Soon the Germany-based company grew to not ...
Gabriela König is the CEO of König & Meyer, a music manufacturing company for which her grandfather started in the 1930s. He was a tool maker who saw the need for well structured musi...
Angela Koregelos grew up playing the flute and taking lessons from her father, George Koregelos. George owned his own retail store and Angela has fond memories of working alongside her fa...
George Koregelos made a series of well-respected flutes under his name in the 1970s that was but one of his career highlights in the music products industry. After studying instrument rep...
Ted Kornblum has a long legacy in the music industry. His grandfather started St. Louis Street Music and his father started Crate amplifiers and Alvarez guitars. Not content to rest on hi...
Günter Körner began designing musical instruments at an early age growing up in Germany and, after gaining an engineering degree in college, he spent his entire career making instruments....
Mike Korpak enjoyed his work in the factory at Gibson Guitars beginning back in the 1960s in Kalamazoo, Michigan. During his career at Gibson, Mike was able to grow into management and ra...
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...
Jerry Kovarsky was the product/brand manager at KORG for over 15 years. Working with Jack Hotop they were part of the team that created a long line of innovative synthesizer products for ...
Tom Kowalczyk served a long post as the artist relations director at Kurzweil Music. Tom had begun his career in music retail in the 1970s and became an expert on electronic keyboards as ...
Peter Kowalczyk found an old Silver Tone Guitar in his attic as a kid that belonged to his father, who encouraged Peter to play. He surrounded himself with music and found a position yea...
Gary Kramer broke into the music products industry, with partner Travis Bean, when they unveiled the innovative all aluminum guitar neck design in the early 1970’s. With his entrepreneur...
Amy Kreider has been passionate about music from a young age. She played piano, viola, and flute and later studied music business and marketing in college. These passions came together wh...
Albrecht Kretzschmann was the vice president of sales for JA Musik in Germany and played an important role in the company’s expansion into the global market. His vast understanding of the...
Dale Krevens has been involved with Tech 21 since before its inception. In fact, Dale was instrumental in urging Andrew Barta to start his own business (when he was originally only lookin...
Ilja Krumins is a co-founder of Gamechanger Audio. He was born in Latvia and studied music in London while playing rock, surf, and rockabilly in several bands he formed with his friends. ...
Ted Krumwiede was a veteran of the piano industry working for Kimball and Story & Clark in the important re-birth of the piano business following World War II. Ted had training and a ...
Silvan Küeng was born in Switzerland and began a friendship in school as a young boy with Pirman Giger. The two share a passion for music and guitars and began talking about how they wou...
Dieter Kühnl is the president of Kuhnl & Hoyer. The brass instrument company (name a horn and chances are they have made it) began after World War II in the small town of Markterlbach...
Rick Kukulies helped design and develop the Kustom line of amplifiers in the 1970s. His electrical engineering background along with the advances in technology during that era resulted in...
Tsunesaburo Kurosawa has a deep passion for instrument building and has become one of Japan’s leading classical guitar luthiers. The success of his guitars grew into the need to create a...
Ray Kurzweil appeared on the popular 1950s and 1960s quiz show “I’ve Got a Secret” to reveal that he had made a computer that could make music. Since those early days, Ray has come to def...
David Kutner was new to the music products industry when he was offered the job as President of Hammond Organs in the late 1960s. It was a time for change in the organ business as sales s...
John Kuziel was a long time factory worker for the Gibson Guitar Company when it was located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked as a final inspector for the guitar line and later was in t...
Milton Kyser was raised in a small, poor farming family in East, Texas. He grew up during the Great Depression and in fact as a boy told himself if he ever had a business of his own he w...
Sandy La Mantia was only the third President of Shure Incorporated. The founder’s wife, Rose, hired Sandy to run the company for which she is still chairperson. The company has had a very...
Gerry Labelle’s first musical instrument was the alto saxophone; later the tenor and soprano saxophone remained his main instruments, and he later played C Flute, piccolo & Alto flute...
