Gail Warnaar started a double reed camp for high school band students in the Michigan area, which lead to her involvement with the music products industry. In 1981 Gail formed the Double...
Rick Valentine is the founder and president of Valentine’s House of Music, a retail store dedicated to piano sheet music and method books. Over his career, Rick developed not only a true...
Jim Trimper, Sr. was the president of Denton, Cottier & Daniels, a chain of piano and organ stores in the upstate New York area. The company was formed in 1827 and thus has a long his...
Bill Price was active in the band instrument business after being involved with other industries and as a result has a very unique and positive perspective on the music industry. Bill wa...
Jerry Olson purchased a small music store in the early 1950s after teaching along-side his wife in their home town. Soon the store grew and other locations throughout Minnesota were esta...
Dave Olsen’s passion for music began when he was eight years old and his mother, who also played, gave Dave lessons. He later played French horn for the school band and piano for the hig...
Big Jay McNeely was there when the emotions of rhythm and blues gave birth to rock and roll. His honkin' sax style gave raw and bold tones to the feelings behind the R&B and Jump Swin...
Art Kubera began taking accordion lessons when he was eight years old growing up in Buffalo, New York. His love of music continued to develop and within a few years he was playing in sch...
Paul Monachino grew up in the Rochester, New York area during the big band era. He played trumpet and set out to see as many of the dance bands as he could including his hero Harry James...
Paul Musilli opened his drum shop in upstate New York called Buffalo Drum Outlet. The year was 1980 and as Paul recalled in the early days his customer base grew as a direct result of hi...
Barbara Meeks fell in love with music at an early age and played flute all though school and into college where she majored in music education. While working at Buddy Roger’s Music in Oh...
Bob Lynch is a pioneering independent representative in the era when many manufacturers were slowly phasing out the inside rep. Bob began playing trumpet at an early age and even provide...
Dave Luce grew up in a musical home and in fact wrote his doctoral thesis on the analysis of musical instruments back in 1959. As an interesting side note, that thesis was sponsored in p...
Jay Leonhart's long and often celebrated career as a bassist has included recording and performances with Frank Sinatra, Carly Simon, Sting, and Gary Burton, among others. His first albu...
Michael Laiacona wanted to create a guitar box with special effects just for himself. In fact, when he first showed it to the members of Taj Mahal in 1971, Michael didn't even have a nam...
Michael Kubera grew up in the music store his father established in Buffalo, New York. Kubera Music was a full line store that specialized in the big name brands as well as the hard to f...
Bob Kohl was hired by Music & Arts in Maryland just before turning sixteen years old and has been in the industry ever since that time. The store was located in the local mall and he...
Paul Graves began delivering pianos in 1957 up in Minnesota before moving to Alabama where he continued to deliver. He soon discovered that he would make more money if he sold the pianos...
Preston Epps was the percussionist who had a top 20 hit recording in 1959 entitled "Bongo Rock." The success of the song led to additional recordings and concert tours that forever tied ...
Fred Davis began playing saxophone as a boy and started his own band, the Freddy Davis Orchestra, which played around Ohio during World War II. He was well equipped with reeds for his gig...
Russ Bullis took up the trumpet as a child and played throughout high school. During his college years he gave trumpet lessons at the local music store and took a strong interest in teac...
Betsy Bullis began singing in church at an early age and fell in love with music and music making. After college she taught choir where her husband, Russ, was the band director. After R...
Bob Berkman has a passion about the player piano and the player piano rolls. Bob's grandparents had a player piano when he was a child and he grew up fascinated by the instrument. Once ...
Cecilia Rodrigo is the only daughter of famed Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. In addition to her colorful life growing up in such a musical home, Cecilia’s passion for music led her to...
Zafar Geoffrey grew up in Sialkot Pakistan, the home base for his family’s music company. His grandfather established the company in 1912 with a focus on providing high quality bagpipes ...
Cordelia von Gymnich was born in Frankfurt, which is ironic considering that for so many members of the music product industry, she is Frankfurt! Her love of music began at an early age,...
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...
Kate Riessland was born in England in the years following World War II and soon found she had an interest in learning all she could about the German culture. While in Germany, in 1969, s...
Ivan Peykov grew up in the music business as his father formed a company to make traditional Bulgarian instruments. After attending college with a focus on engineering, Ivan returned to ...
Bonka Peykov has a great deal of respect for the process of making high quality musical instruments. When she joined her husband’s family business, she worked long and hard to learn each...
