Edwards

Steve Wiest and the North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band have been nominated for two Grammy Awards. The band was nominated in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category for its Lab 2009 recording. Steve received a Best Instrumental Composition nomination for Ice-Nine, a track from the same album. Good luck, Steve!

It seems that 2009 has been the year of the baby.

On Tuesday, Ron Knaflic became the proud father of Roland Francis Knaflic, a beautiful baby boy that came into this world a strong 8.8 pounds.

Congratulations go out to Ron and his wife Ellen on the addition to their family.

After much work by Josh we are proud to launch a new website that will grow with us in the upcoming years. Check us out and all of the new content. There are some great instrument galleries that should provide you with plenty of entertainment.

So many times we hear the question “Do you offer financing?”. Well we do not unfortunately but while talking to our new dealer Washington Music I was informed that they do finance for the Mid Atlantic region. For information on this please email Byron at byront@chucklevins.com or Lee at leew@chucklevins.com. Don’t forget you can call and talk to them in person at 301-946-8808. Human contact is not such a bad thing.

Occasionally, Mike and Ron take their trombones out into nature. This past weekend, they decided to practice excerpts and serenade riders at the Lapham Peak Cyclocross race. Ron actually pulled double duty… he joined Mike on the hill after placing 5th overall in his Cat 3 race.

Excerpts heard:

Fat Bottomed Girls
Theme song from Sanford & Son
Eye of the Tiger
Chameleon
Sesame Street
Jeopardy theme song
Back in Black

No one advanced, but no one was cut during this round of playing.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to tell our shop visitors that they don’t have to purchase a case in order to get their new Edwards home. Don’t get me wrong… we’ll be happy to sell you a great case, but it’s just not necessary to keep your horn protected during shipment.

We wrap each instrument in bubble wrap (the heavy duty kind). Trombone slides and bell sections are wrapped separately. Then we place the bubble-wrapped components on a bed of packing peanuts in a sturdy box. More packing peanuts go on top before the box is sealed. Below you’ll see a photo of a trombone being prepared to ship.

I have worked at Edwards going on 12 years. Most years seem to fly by, but this past year has been tougher on all of us. With the global economy in the dumps, I worry about how musicians are being affected. Many freelancers have seen the well of gigs start to dry up. But it’s important to remember that things will get better over time and by working through the dips you will be prepared for the next upturn.

Instrument manufacturers have been affected like most other industries. Remember that without you, Edwards can not survive. We rely on our customers to keep our company strong, which allows us maintain our high standards, to develop new instruments, and to promote music by supporting our artists whenever they present concerts, clinics and masterclasses.

Don’t get me wrong. This year hasn’t been all bad. My wife and I had a baby girl and we celebrated quite a few Edwards/Getzen weddings. We also were thrilled with the accomplishments of our artists on the audition circuit. I’m not going to lie — having two Edwards artists as the only finalists for the New York Phil audition was great for our egos. Having one of those finalists playing on an Alessi horn validated the years of hard work that went into building that horn. I always wanted to play in an orchestra for a living, but I’ll take to living vicariously through every one of you that calls to talk about your job and instrument needs.

We want you to get the position you want, whether it be in your community band, college wind ensemble, all-state jazz band or major symphony orchestra. Because of that, we put our heart and soul into each and every horn we build. And when you support us by purchasing our horns, know that your money is staying here in the US, supporting our families. The only products manufactured outside the US are the Willson Rotax valve (Switzerland) and our new travel cases (South Korea).

We are maintaining our focus through these difficult times and are working to come out stronger and with a grid iron focus on what’s important — your Edwards and our musical relationship with you.

Remember this when it comes time to buy a new instrument.

Ron, Ellen, and I were able to witness the marriage of Michael Clobes and Kelly Troubl earlier tonight. Michael joined the Edwards team quite a while back and has been a great asset to us both personally and professionally. Congratulations to the new couple! We wish them all the best.

Congratulations to Christan and Beth on the arrival of Ava Brienne over the weekend! Ava’s vitals: 7 pounds, 15 ounces; 20.5 inches. Everyone is healthy and resting at home. As if we need to mention it… Christan will not be available this week.

Our web site will soon be undergoing a major facelift. We’re excited about the change and a little overwhelmed with all the work left to do. Ron has been busy taking new instrument shots, Christan has been working on content, and I have been comping and coding late into the night.

With all the work that goes into building a site, we’ve decided that we can no longer support IE6, a browser that was released over 8 years ago. In that time, I’ve gotten married, had a kid, and lost a significant portion of my sanity while trying to get stuff to work in that browser. But I digress…

We strongly suggest you upgrade to a new browser that supports web standards. Here are a few we like:

Firefox (our favorite)
Safari
Chrome
Internet Explorer 8

If for some reason you can’t upgrade your browser (or use Firefox… hint, hint), don’t worry. You will still be able to view all the content our site has to offer. It just won’t look as pretty as it should.