Seymour Bernstein shared great insight into his career and life in music during his NAMM Oral History interview. He proudly spoke of the first moment he put his hands on the white keys of...
Zeb Billings opened Billings Pianos in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1956 beginning a long and celebrated career in the music industry. With great success as a retailer, Zeb branched out into ...
Steve Bird joined the piano industry right out of school and established a life-long career that he has thoroughly enjoyed. While working for Sherman Clay, Steve was asked to open up sev...
Deena Bird began teaching piano while she was still a teenager. She later established her own music school, which for a while was located in the Steinway Gallery of her hometown of San A...
Sherry Bird teamed with her future husband, Steve Bird, to open a Steinway dealership in Austin, Texas. Together they also opened a second location in San Antonio. With a strong busines...
Lyle Bird grew up in a musical family with his mother playing the piano daily. As a teenager he played trumpet in several swing bands during the big band era including with such leaders a...
Wally Boot spent 52 years working in the Steinway & Sons piano factory on Long Island New York! As it turns out, Wally was born on Steinway Street, just down the road from the factory...
Bob Bull held many positions throughout the music products industry over his long career. However, he is perhaps best known as the president of the Steinway & Sons piano company durin...
Ted Chapin has many stories about the music industry, making his June 2010 interview fascinating. As president of Rodgers & Hammerstein Music since 1985 he spoke of the growth and dev...
Joy Collins had a very successful career selling pianos and organs! In fact she may very well be the person who sold the most Allen Organs ever. Joy was hired by Glenn Davis, who owned a ...
Hal Cowan studied business administration while playing music all through school. He loved playing organ and found himself in the company of fellow organ buffs as well as employees of org...
Steve Dawe grew up surrounded by music! His mother was a piano teacher and he studied the trumpet in college, but ultimately gravitated to the Hammond B3 as his primary instrument on stag...
Skip Daynes is proud of his heritage and the fact that he operates the oldest family- owned music store in the United States. Daynes Music in Salt Lake was also one of the first Steinway ...
Robert Dove joined Steinway & Sons at a time of global change and development. He helped establish the Far East division of the piano company and for many years assisted with the co...
Sara Faust may be the only music retailer who has won both the Chopin Piano Competition's first prize as well as the Concert Artists Guild's first place award! In 1996, after her career ...
French Forbes II is the grandson of the founder of the Forbes Piano and Organ Company. Ernest Erastus Forbes formed the company in 1889 by selling pianos from the back of his horse-drawn ...
French Forbes III. of course took piano lessons as a child, after all his great-grandfather established EE Forbes & Sons Piano Company in 1889. While he grew up surrounded by pianos, ...
Vic Geiger has had a long and impressive career in the piano and organ business going back to the day he was hired by Kimball in 1974. While with Kimball, Vic played an important role wit...
Don Glasgow is the Director of Sales for North America for Grotrian Piano Company GmbH, joining the company in 2013. Don’s role in the company followed a long career in the piano segment...
Jerry Goldman's father, Harry, opened a wholesale piano business inside Marshall Field's Department store in Chicago with his brother back in 1947. Just over a decade later, Harry and his...
Peter Goodrich grew up playing piano and got into the music business when he began a job at Lyon & Healy as an assistant to the manager. He got a chance to go to the harp factory and ...
Mike Greene is the president of Greene Music in San Diego, California, a store he started with his father in 1974. Mike grew up in the business and recalls dressing up like a circus bark...
Gary Grimes played a very vital role in the early part of his career, working in the music education department at Wurlitzer. Gary wrote many of the training programs for Wurlitzer as wel...
David Horine opened a small piano store in Bloomington, Illinois in the 1980s. David became a piano technician and gathered a nice reputation for tuning and repairs before he decided to ...
Rick Jefferies was focused on pre-med when he attended college in Jackson, Tennessee, but had a change of direction when he took a part time job at a local music store. The store sold St...
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...
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...
Ramsey Lewis had a monster hit record with his jazz version of "The In Crowd." The song, which is considered to be the quintessential instrumental jazz hit of the 60s, led to a series of ...
Prenta Ljucovic immigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia in 1973. A friend from back home suggested that she seek a job with Steinway & Sons, especially given her pervious trai...
Ron Losby was classically trained on the piano and began his love of the music industry by providing free lessons at Sherman Clay’s retail chain. He later worked within the Wurlitzer musi...
George Lukas recalled, in great detail, when he was aboard a navy ship at the end of World War II and sitting down to play a blue-painted Steinway upright piano (also known as the Steinwa...
