Clarinets
Emilio Lyons would often have his well-known customers such as Stan Getz and Benny Carter meet him at his home whenever they needed work done on their saxophone. Emilio was the manager for a music store in Boston while also repairing instruments whenever he could. Over the years he built a...
Barbara Honig found out about the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music when she joined their New Horizons band - a band that offers learning new instruments and playing in a concert band setting to adults. After playing some percussion in the band, and then switching to the clarinet, Barbara...
John Stavash and his sister took over the music company their parents established in the early 1950s. John recalls the first milestone of the business was when it moved out of the family home into a real store front. Over the years, he has been instrumental in growing the product line as well as ...
Theodore Johnson was playing in the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra when he began to think of ideas that would improve his clarinet's mouthpiece. Over time, he designed his own mouthpiece and established his own company, while still performing full-time. His product line grew over time as did the...
Anthony Ortega has been a mainstay on the west coast jazz scene since the 1940s. Growing up in Watts, Anthony went to school with and was exposed to many of the Los Angeles jazz musicians of the era including Charles Mingus. Playing sax, clarinet, and flute Anthony went on to play and tour with...
Jody Espina had a long history as both a musician and educator before deciding to launch his own line of saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces. Jody honed his playing at a young age before moving on to study at Berklee. Following college, Jody went on to teach music including serving as Director of...
Kenji Chiwaki followed in the footsteps of Toru Hora as the president of Buffet Crampon Japan. Hora-san opened the branch in Tokyo in 1967 and helped establish the brand within the Asian market. Kenji joined the company in 1986 and has focused on the three elements he learned from his predecessor...
Toru Hora was classically trained on the piano and attended Juilliard. He joined the Buffet Crampon company in 1964 and both established and served as president of the Buffet Japan branch three years later. Much of his effort in Japan was to establish the brass instruments into the market and to...
Hirokazu Kato took part in the innovative engineering team at Yamaha in Japan who utilized FM Synthesis to create an electronic musical instrument, first the TRX prototype and then the revolutionary DX7. Kato-san began his career with Yamaha in 1965 when he helped design the company's first...
Phil Passin began working for Carl Fischer in 1947 in the shipping department, where he took a deep interest in the industry. After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Phil returned to Carl Fischer where he began working his way up in the company. When the company sold its interest in...