Keyboards
Joey Welz was a member of Bill Haley’s Comets as well as Link Wray’s Wray Men. He played piano in the early days of Rockabilly for Bat Records with his own group as well as with The Jay Rockers. While in the Army in Germany in the early 1960s, Joey became a recording engineer for the Armed Forces...
Chris Scialfa developed his great love and passion for music at a very young age. By the time he was five years old Chris was taking classical piano lessons, which thanks to his understanding teacher, occasionally included works by Chris’ hero, Elton John! He began writing original music when he...
Adriana Balic is a vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, songwriter, producer, bandleader, and educator, covering styles from classical to pop/rock and jazz. From 2003 she served as keyboardist and vocalist to the Grammy Award winning artist “P!NK” on tours in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She...
Axel Hartmann was given a piano by his grandfather, which changed his life. He soon developed a true passion for music. The first organ he played was a Farfisa and by 13 years old he was playing in a band. During this time in history, technology met musical instrument innovation and the market was...
Howard Reitzes was brought up on classical piano but found a true passion for playing when he discovered the Blues. After trying his hand at the guitar, Howard fell in love with keyboards when he saved up and purchased a Vox Super Continental Keyboard. At 15, he put together his first Blues band...
Sonny Wittkopp studied business in college and landed a job as a bookkeeper for a local music store in Washington state. This experience generated a great passion for the music industry which resulted in Sonny opening the Hammond Organ Studios of Spokane in 1962. The store grew along with the home...
Giuseppe Vecchietti, known throughout his career as Beppe, primarily worked for three companies over his long career. All three were located in the same Italian Marche region by the Adriatic Sea, the first being Farfisa, then Siel, and finally Roland Europe. Along the way, as Marketing and Sales...
Marc-Pierre Verge came to work on computer generated musical instruments by first studying acoustics. He and his colleagues at Applied Acoustics Systems used physical modeling to recreate the sounds of analog synthesizers and acoustic objects. When they released their first PC based products in...
Gary Leunberger opened a music store in San Francisco during the 1980s that soon specialized in electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Being a top seller of Yamaha instruments led the company to hire Gary to help program their products. Gary created the voice presets for the DX7, among others,...
Seiki Kato is the president of KORG, the Japan based electronics company that has created innovative musical products since his father first established the company in the 1970s. Seiki provided meaningful insight into the international growth of KORG as well as his philosophy moving forward as it...