Women in the Music Industry
Brenda Lust has spent much of her 20+ year career at Mississippi Music solving problems. With a background in accounting, Brenda came to Mississippi Music in 1992 working her way from the mailroom to the accounting department. Along the way she has worked on many special projects to help with the...
Sherry Kampe was hired to join the Mississippi Music team about the same time as her lifelong friend Rosi Johnson. The two played a big role in adapting new technology over the years to address tasks such as accounts receivable and monthly inventory. Right after finishing high school in 1972,...
Tammie Harper was born and raised in Meridian, Mississippi and like so many people in the town she was interested in music, so she joined the Peavey Electronics team. Her first job for the company was working the old telex machines. She was thrilled when word processing and computer upgrades...
Liz Jones joined Mississippi Music in August 1977 when the company was operating Peavey’s Melody Music in Meridian. Her husband, Barry, was hired a few months earlier to make deliveries for the store, while Liz started out behind the front counter. Together the couple worked all aspects of the...
Jewel Bass is known for singing backup on countless Malaco recordings since 1969 and with her own band, These Days. She started singing in church, influenced by her uncles who sang in a gospel group. After joining an R&B band that toured the East Coast, she began singing for Malaco Records in...
Terry Hart is well known at Mississippi Music for her expert saxophone repair skills. Students and professional musicians from around the state (and sometimes outside of Mississippi too) come to her for help with their beloved instrument. She majored in flute performance in college and taught music...
Cornelia Kinzelmann is CEO of ESM which produces mouthpieces for clarinets and saxophones. Cornelia remembers her grandfather, Wenzel Schreiber, from the time when she was a child. Wenzel Schreiber and his sons, Ernst and Hugo, made the company W. Schreiber a great success. After the company was...
Robin Galison is the founder and president of Music Gift located in Boca Raton, Florida. The company began as a division of the Edwin F. Kalmus Music Publishers, which her husband’s family started. The publishing company was founded in 1926 by Edwin Kalmus originally as the United States Agent for...
Lauri Knapton is the founder of Knapton Musik Knotes in Janesville, Wisconsin. The store, which was established in 2000, provides musical instruments, lessons, and a long list of community outreach programs such as Rock Camp and Uke Circles. Lauri has been passionate about music since she began...
Sigrun Jantzen has been playing piano and cello since her childhood and holds a Ph.D. in History of Fine Arts. She has also worked for a book publisher which focuses on classical music books. In 2012, Sigrun was hired as the Head of Sales by G. Henle Publishers in Germany. The company was...