Athan Billias had a rather impressive vantage point to witness the growth and development of the synthesizer in the late 1970s and early 80s. After performing as a professional musician i...
John Bertrand Sr. has thoroughly enjoyed bringing music to the lives of young students. As a band director in the early part of his career he taught and encouraged children at nearly ever...
Bryan Bell was given the task of engineering a working synthesizer using all of Herbie Hancock’s favorite keyboards back in the early 1970s, well before MIDI. Herbie’s single instruction ...
Edna Adams has been a mentor to many within the music publishing and music retail business since first entering the industry in the early 1970s. She joined Charlie Hansen Music Publishing...
Jimmie D. Webb operated a small music shop in Antioch, California, which was also the headquarters for his amplifier business. The Webb Amps were widely used by electric blues and rock b...
Masamitsu Yamano’s grandfather opened up a small music stop in the heart of Ginza –the shopping area of Tokyo, Japan. The year was 1892. The retailer, which started out as a small keyboar...
Jack Linton followed in the footsteps of his father who formed the famed Linton oboes brand of musical instruments. The instruments have been handcrafted in Elkhart, Indiana, since the 19...
Wayne Charvel is the electric guitar designer and luthier who placed colorful and innovative instruments in the hands of heavy rockers in the 1980s and 90s--ushering in a new era of music...
Francois Leduc was the President of the French music publishing company Editions Alphonse Leduc, which has been in his family since it was first established in 1841. The family musical or...
Ted McCarty was the president of Gibson Guitars when he signed Les Paul to help design a series of instruments with his name. Ted went on to design and patent guitars such as the Flying ...
Gerhard Meinl represents the 7th generation in a family of brass instrument makers. After integrating the East German, formerly state-owned, B&S GmbH in Markneukirchen in 1991 with Me...
Masashi Miyazawa formed the Miyazawa Flutes Company in 1969. Mr. Miyazawa founded the company with a dream to create a better instrument. With his background in the design and manufacture...
Takuya Nakata is the Director and Executive Officer for Yamaha in Japan. During his NAMM Oral History interview he provided details about the development of Yamaha’s electronic musical pr...
Hideo Nonaka was the chairman of Nonaka Boeki Company, a music instrument distributor located in Yokohama, Japan. His father began importing musical recordings in a business that was burn...
Yukio Ohashi is the chairman of one of Japan’s leading music instrument distributors, Prima Gakki. The company was established in 1945 as a sheet music distributor and wholesaler. Over ...
Hiroo Okabe is the Director and Managing Executive Officer of Yamaha’s Musical Instrument Business Group. During his NAMM Oral History interview he provided the history of how Mr. Torakus...
Peter Paul Prier began playing the violin when he was 8 years old, growing up in Germany. He studied violin making while he was a teenager and in 1959 set out to America to open his own v...
John Riddle plays a vital role in the NAMM Trade Show and has for decades. His strong relationships with exhibiting companies is proof of his dedication for customer service when providin...
George Riley is an embodiment of the passion so often found in the music products industry. George worked side by side the founder of Electro-Voice, Al Kahn, during the major expansion ye...
Yukio Sakurai studied photography and art at the university in Tokyo before his uncle asked if Yukio would come to work for him. His uncle was the founder of the Japan Music Trade Magazin...
Johannes Scherzer was a world-renowned master trumpet maker who spent much of his long career with JA Musik Group in Markneukirchen, Germany. His passion for the instrument contributed to...
Leland Smith was the renowned founder of computerized musical notation. He came to symbolize the technological changes in print music beginning in the 1960s. His work as a professor and e...
Peter B. Smith was a composer and publisher who began his career as a musician in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, later joining the Coldstream Guards and eventually the Queen's Royal Iris...
Dr. Peter Hanser Strecker’s great grandfather worked for a descendent of the Schott’s Music Publishing empire. As president of the firm since 1968, Dr. Strecker has played a key role in t...
Al Sturchio served the Texas Bandmasters Association for over 25 years as director and also as president. His passion and unbelievable energy has been a large part of the success of the a...
Mitsuru Umemura is the eleventh President of the Yamaha Corporation. During his NAMM Oral History interview he provided details about the development of Yamaha beginning in 1887. He likes...
Thomas Veerkamp proudly represents the 100-year-old company in Mexico that was formed by his grandfather in 1908. The company began as a small retail store and later expanded to one of th...
Carol Warden learned all she knows about the music industry from her mother and father who opened Dale Music Company in Silver Springs, MD. Over the years she has built on the lessons sh...
H. P. Wilfer inherited the passion and drive of his father who formed the Framus Guitar Company. After hard times and his father’s retirement, H. P. bought back the company to bring the m...
Josef Lausman proudly followed in his family’s footsteps. In the small German village of Nauheim (near Frankfurt) he made mouthpieces, primarily for trumpets and trombones for many years ...
