Mitsuo Kasahara served as the first president of Yamaha Corporation of America after setting up the branch office in Southern California in 1961. Three years earlier he established the f...
Helga Kasimoff and her husband established the Bluthner piano dealership in Pasadena, California in 1963. Since that time many Blüthner grand pianos have been restored in their workshop s...
Hirotaka Kawai was the president of the Kawai Music Corporation in Japan following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the company's founder and his father, who expanded the company afte...
Sanjiro Kawamorita was drafted into the Japanese Army during World War II. He served under Shigeru Kawai who hired Kawamorita-San and other soldiers from his unit after the war. He remain...
Sam Keeney loved playing music! He had a road organ he hauled to performances nights and on weekends. Starting in the late 1950s, his day job was music retailing. In 1970 he bought a stor...
Gordon Keller owned and operated a string of piano stores in and around northern Virginia and became a much-celebrated figure in the area due to his work at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Tr...
Andrew Kemble’s grandfather established the Kemble Piano Company and started a family tradition that Andrew carries on today. The pianos became an important product within the European ma...
Kern Kennedy tickled the ivories on a number of early rock and roll and rockabilly recordings back in the 1950s. It was the heyday for Sun Studios in Memphis right after the success of El...
Gary Kilday took a chance on an old piano bench maker in 1988 that had fallen on hard times. Since that time the company, renamed GRK, has kept the tradition of customer service and quali...
Eileen Kilday and her husband worked hard to re-build an old piano bench making company, which they renamed GRK. This project for the Kilday’s began in 1988 with the purchase of the old c...
Bill Kilpatrick radiates an unwavering commitment to both the craft of musical arrangement and the preservation of its storied heritage. From the tender age of nine, when he first cradled...
Steven Kinchen dreamed of playing music ever since he was a small child. When he had a chance to work in the music industry following his music degree in college, Steven jumped at the ch...
Craig Knudsen cut his teeth on the industry as many people who have come to service in leadership positions. He started working for the Wurlitzer Company during college. After graduating ...
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,...
Ago (Alan) Koerv joined the Wurlitzer Company in 1960 as Chief Financial Officer after working as a consultant for the instrument maker’s annual reports. Located in the DeKalb headquarter...
Gayle Kowalchyk loves teaching piano! She studied piano in college, taught at the university level, and then established a piano studio in her home with her husband, E. L.
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 ...
John Kozar is the founder of Piano Productions Press in Philadelphia. This music publishing company was formed to release the works of the First Piano Quartet, which began broadcasting a ...
Dean Kramer's deep-rooted passion for music stems from his upbringing in a family immersed in musical traditions. With a mother who dedicated six decades to teaching and playing piano and...
Kathi Kretzer is the founder of Kretzer Piano in Jupiter, Florida. She established the store in 1985 and has since been an active member of the music industry as well as her local commun...
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 ...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Steve Kuhn grew up in Boston and began performing in area n...
Dewey Kuhn grew up listening to his grandmother playing the organ, which she did in her younger days accompanying silent movies. His passion grew as he learned to play.
Tom Lagomarsino has served as marketing director and Executive Vice President of PianoDisc since the company was established in 1988. Tom was there when the very first unit was shipped an...
Doug LaLonde was a professional musician before being drafted to serve in the US Army during the Korean War. He played percussion in the army and while stationed in San Francisco began h...
David Lambert was boyhood friends with David Ellis’ sons. Mr. Ellis is the founder of Ellis Pianos in Birmingham, Alabama, who built a baseball training facility on the top floor of his s...
Roy Larrick was a distinguished sales representative for Hammond Organs and Panasonic's Technics products before launching his own retail business. After gaining invaluable experience at ...
Bertil Larson was like so many of the former employees at the mighty Wurlitzer Company that found his experiences there to have been happy ones and the friends he has made like family. Th...
John Larson worked in piano retail in and around North Dakota before opening his own store. He worked the area and became involved in the music programs and lessons within the community. ...
Tim Laskey founded the Wyman Piano Company. After a long and successful career with some of the top names in the music industry, such as Wurlitzer and Baldwin, Tim wanted to introduce a ...
Robert Laube spent over 30 years as the top salesman for Kimball Piano and Organ Company. In fact, he may very well have sold over one million organs during the big boom of the early 1970...
