String Instruments
Jacquelyn Dillon-Krass was a pioneering woman in the music products industry. As a music educator she first connected with the industry when hired by Scherl & Roth in 1970 to head up their efforts to promote their string products by creating string orchestras in the public school system. She...
Roberto Tirado began working in the music industry with William Lewis & Son, the famed violin company out of Chicago. After studying building and repairs he was given the opportunity to head the string instrument line for Gemeinhardt in Elkhart, Indiana. For years Roberto has worked to...
Frantisek Nemecek was born and raised in Czechoslovakia where he studied advertising and helped the more than 70 instrument makers in the area to sell their products. Frantisek began by exporting a large number of the instruments outside the area and into the Soviet Union, where the demand for hand...
Ernst Roth is a guitar luthier who over the last 40 years of his career has dedicated himself to training younger craftsman in the art of violin and guitar making. He was born in the musical instrument capital of the world, Markneukirchen, Germany. After his training he opened up his own shop in...
Kurt Lutz was a well-regarded German luthier who, along with many other instrument makers, settled in Bubenreuth, Germany following World War II. Mr. Lutz provided a first-hand account of the era by explaining that the city council created a poster seeking to find instrument makers displaced by the...
Herbert Wanka is the master bow maker who established his own company in Baiersdorf, Germany in 1971. He began making bows in 1952 and worked as an apprentice to the renowned craftsman, Emanuel Schuster, in Bubenreuth Germany. After completing his master examinations in 1968, Herbert formed his own...
Reiner Hammerl is the son of Josef Hammerl, who in 1938 opened a drugstore in Germany. Among the products he created himself were natural wood varnishes and stains that soon became well used by violin makers. When Reiner joined the company in 1954, the product line was well established as a leading...
Artur Teller created a successful career by producing highly regarded violin bridges and supplying them to luthiers in and around his hometown of Bubenreuth, Germany. Like many of the instrument builders he sold to, Artur and his family moved to Bubenreuth after World War II as the small town...
Lothar Seifert came from a family of musical instrument makers in the Kirchberg area of Germany. His father, Oskar, began making bows in 1924 and by 1932 has set up a work shop in Graslitz. Like so many refugees, the Seifert family was forced to re-locate after World War II. They had heard of a...
Nick Rail is the president and founder of the retail string of stores in Southern California with his namesake that began in 1986. Nick began his career as a band instrument repairman for La Grandeur Music in 1974. After becoming active in the repair side of the business, Nick decided to open his...