Buffet Crampon
Paul Baronnat started singing in choirs beginning at the age of eight. As a singer of the permanent choir of the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra, he was approached by RCA to work for its classical catalog. In 1985, after 15 years at RCA, Paul started to work for the woodwind instrument maker Buffet...
Jacques Gaudet was president of the famous French brass instruments production company, Antoine Courtois. Since 1789, the name Courtois has been synonymous with fine brass instruments. In 1917, Jacques' grandfather, Emanuel Gaudet, was a music publisher who acquired the company. When Jacques’...
Thomas Schreiber, grandson of Wenzel Schreiber, today runs his own repair shop and takes care of the woodwind instruments of several music schools in the region of Frankfurt. After an apprenticeship at Buffet Crampon in France starting in 1977, Thomas joined his father’s company ESM in Austria for...
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...
Steve Rorie landed a part time job the very same day he graduated high school at the Vincent Bach plant in Elkhart, Indiana. He later would accompany his grandfather and father at EK Blessings to observe them while they worked honing and de-burring trumpet valves . His passion for how musical...
Carsten Göpf has combined his passion for playing the trumpet with an affinity for engineering in his profession as the plant manager for the brass factory at Buffet Crampon in Markneukirchen. Carsten did his apprenticeship at Wenzel Meinl GmbH known for first class brass instruments. As assistant...
Jochen Keilwerth’s grandfather founded the Julius Keilwerth Saxophones company in 1925 in Grasnitz. Once one of the largest saxophone producers in Europe, Keilwerth also produced trumpets and trombones, and gained a particular reputation for the Keilwerth SX90R saxophone that was introduced in...
Toru Hora was classically trained on the piano and attended Juilliard. He joined the Buffet Crampon company in 1964 and both established and served as president of the Buffet Japan branch three years later. Much of his effort in Japan was to establish the brass instruments into the market and to...
Kenji Chiwaki followed in the footsteps of Toru Hora as the president of Buffet Crampon Japan. Hora-san opened the branch in Tokyo in 1967 and helped establish the brand within the Asian market. Kenji joined the company in 1986 and has focused on the three elements he learned from his predecessor...
Phil Passin began working for Carl Fischer in 1947 in the shipping department, where he took a deep interest in the industry. After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Phil returned to Carl Fischer where he began working his way up in the company. When the company sold its interest in...