Music Retail

André Cotelle is the president of the French retail and wholesaler The Arpeges Company. The family-operated business has been a well-respected wholesaler in and outside of France for many years. André and his wife worked side by side until her passing in 2009, and for many years André’s children...
Ruth Charles and her husband Dick opened a music store in Glendale, California, called Charles Music. They enjoyed a long life together as music makers and teachers and retailers of musical products. The couple pioneered many products in the southern California area including those of Yamaha and...
Irena Komatar was the founder and president of the Lastra Company, located in the country of Slovenia. What started out as a small music retail store quickly grew into both retailing and wholesaling of musical products. Irena’s goal was to create top service for her customers, both musicians who...
Ed Roman opened a guitar store in Las Vegas after a successful career in the motorcycle industry. What he learned about that business and the customer base he found, he could easily apply to his guitar store. He soon expanded his store to a company which also manufactured instruments. Ed pioneered...
Bill Gray was a music major in college and played drums professionally before joining the industry. Bill worked in music retail and as a manufacturer’s rep, which provided valuable experiences for him before he joined the Slingerland Drum Company in 1977. Bill combined his backgrounds to open a...
Al Marinaro has helped define the role of the independent rep in the music products industry for over 40 years. Al’s passion for music and the industry has played a critical part in his quest to raise the bar for customer service and attention to the details that matter most to the musician who...
Dennis Bamber helped pioneer mail order catalogs for musical products beginning in the 1970s. After opening a small woodwind store in South Bend, Indiana in 1978, Dennis noticed that many of his customers were traveling 5 and 6 hours to his store. While he expanded the size of the store he also...
Robert Ulrich served as Chairman of Target and helped pioneer the mass retailing of affordable musical instruments in what has been known as the Big Box Stores. In 2010, the year after his retirement from Target, Bob's dream of creating a special music education experience for people was realized...
Fred Allard has been passionate about music making since he began playing guitar in the 8th grade. As a teen he worked for Milano’s Music Center in Mesa, Arizona in the mid 1960s. Fred worked for the music store for over eight years working his way up from salesman on the floor to manager of one of...
Jim Funada has proudly served the music products industry in several important ways over the last 40 years. He began his career by working for the Yamaha Corp. in keyboard retailing. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jim oversaw the Yamaha school programs among keyboard dealers in the San Francisco Bay...

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