Keyboards
Dave Rivard has thoroughly enjoyed his role at Roland Corporation as a sales rep. He has grown the role over the years and covered nearly every state, making connections, introducing new products to his retail customers and often outselling his teammates. Dave was there when many of the amazing...
Doug Beck was hired in the keyboard department at Manny’s Music on the famous 48th street in New York City. The street was lined with musical instrument stores and while Doug worked there the industry enjoyed the synthesizer boom and the introduction of MIDI. In the 1990s Doug was a Korg product...
Chris Martirano started working for Kurzweil Music Systems in 1986. For the first few years he was on the sales side of the equation, originally the district sales manager for the northeastern U.S., then promoted to regional manager for all states east of the Mississippi River in 1988. Later he...
Jeff Nelson's mother was a sought-after pianist who had a regular gig in San Francisco playing at the Top of the Mark. As a kid, Jeff took lessons from a woman who had the best name for a piano teacher, Bea Sharp. Jeff always surrounded himself with music. He played trumpet in grade school,...
Brockett Parsons is proud of the musical education he received in grade school, which was furthered by participating in the school band program at his high school. He went on to graduate from Berklee College of Music. He cut his teeth on classical and jazz while having a strong interest in R&B...
Mark Stein played an important role in psychedelic rock in the 1960s as keyboardist for Vanilla Fudge. His dad was a singer and was always supportive of Mark’s career in music, which began when he played accordion as a child. His dad, who later became Mark’s manager, booked him on a television...
Adam Darrell is a third generation piano dealer in New Hampshire. His grandfather was a popular singer (Ken Darrell and the Rockaways) who opened several music stores in Philadelphia and Boston before opening four piano stores in New Hampshire, beginning in 1969. Adam’s father, Darrell, joined the...
James Nicoloro worked in a few small piano shops in New England, learning the art of tuning and the skills of restoration. He was asked to provide a piano for a women, who was so pleased with the instrument she recommended James to a friend. Before he knew it, James was in business for himself,...
Greg Mathieson spoke passionately about his career in music during his NAMM Oral History interview. He brought up some very interesting points, such as his views on working on the road vs in the recording studio, and his experiences of developing a true musical connection with the vocalists he...
Les Deutsch is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist in the aerospace industry who holds several patents for electronic musical instruments. His father, Ralph Deutsch, invited the sound generator technology for the first digital organ. That instrument, produced by Allen Organ and first shown...