Chinese Music Industry
Abraham Wechter grew up listening to Yiddish music and took both piano and violin lessons as a kid. He used to sneak a transistor radio under his pillow at night and listen to underground rock radio stations. His passion for building guitars came about when he was in a music store and looked into...
June Wang is very proud of her company, Pearl River. She is an outstanding spokesperson for the China-based piano manufacturer. In fact, it was Ms. Wang who assisted the NAMM Oral History team to conduct an interview with the then-chairman, Zhi Cheng Tong back in 2006. Ten years later, at the...
Karl Leong participated in the International Coalition during the NAMM Show beginning in 2012 to discuss collaborative efforts in creating more active music makers. As CEO of KHS, Karl has been active in these and other music education efforts both in Taiwan and around the world. As CEO, Karl has...
Siwei Zou is the founder and president of sE Electronics International Inc. He was born in Shanghai, China and began playing at an early age. Siwei was focused on western classical music and composed both classical and popular music during the early part of his career. He played at the famed...
Kenny Lee began playing music in grade school and has been passionate about it ever since those early years. When he heard from a friend about a job at Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong, Kenny jumped at the chance. In the early part of his career, Kenny worked in nearly every part of the store...
Betty Lee co-founded Tom Lee Music in Hong Kong with her husband in the early 1950s. In the beginning, Thomas Lee kept his full time work as an English secretary at a textile company while Betty Lee looked after the day to day administration of the small trading company which was to become Tom Lee...
Keith Chen joined the Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong as a guitar salesman. The large store had a small guitar department when Keith first joined the company and he took great pride in watching the department grow and develop. During that time he also served in several areas within the guitar...
Katie Yu first heard about Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong while her children were taking music lessons. In 1991, she began working in the administrative office for the store. She found the company to have a great deal of family pride as she worked alongside the two founders, Tom and Betty Lee...
Tom Lee is one of the most famous names in the Asian market of music retail. With Tom Lee Music stores all around Hong Kong and parts of China, his name has been synonymous with music since the early 1950s. In addition to the stores that he established with his wife Betty, the Lees also formed a...
Louis Ip was given a lead from a friend that Tom Lee Music in Hong Kong was hiring and he raced down to apply. He has since enjoyed one of the longest employments with the company, fifty years at the time of this interview in 2011. Over the years Louis has worked in several areas of the company...