Pianos
Mike Bates is the senior member of the Institutional Solutions Group in the Keyboard Division of Yamaha Corporation of America. Over the last 28 years with the company, Mike’s career has included nine years as the general manager of the Music Education Division. In his long career with Yamaha, he...
Bernie Worrell began playing classical music as a small child and it soon led to his life-long passion for music! He met George Clinton, who at the time was leading a Doo-Wop group called The Parliaments. As Bernie experimented with electronic keyboards and synthesizers he teamed with George to pen...
Don Teach is the owner of Shreveport Music store, which was once run by his father. While his father guided the store it was mainly a Hammond dealer and became one of the first to offer Yamaha instruments. By the mid 1960s, he was asked to carry guitars for players who did not want to travel to ...
Scott Houston is known as The Piano Guy thanks to his long running PBS teaching show. During the programs long run Scott has encouraged thousands of people to become music makers, making him the ideal person to speak about the importance of Recreational Music Making (RRM). His passion for teaching...
William Dollarhide was the president and co-owner, along with his wife Margaret, of Dollarhide’s Music Center in Pensacola, Florida. He grew up in a very musical family, with his mother a pianist and teacher and his father a band director. His grandfather was also a band director, so Bill was very...
Hirotaka Kawai is the president of the Kawai Music Corporation in Japan and has followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, the company's founder and his father, who expanded the company after World War II. Kawai-San has played a vital role in the development of factories both within Japan and in...
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...
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...
Frank Lee’s parents established Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong to bring quality musical instruments to their customers. As President of the company, Frank has focused on those original goals and has followed his parents lead to serve their customers. Having been brought up in the business,...
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...