Vandoren

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vandoren is one of the most famous manufacturers of mouthpieces and reeds as well as accessories for woodwind instruments . The company was the first in the world to make reeds for sale. Its products are now regarded as the standard by professional clarinet and saxophone players.

history

The company was founded in 1905 by Eugène van Doren, then a clarinetist in the Paris Opera Orchestra . At that time, clarinet players made their own reeds. Since van Doren's reeds produced a good sound, his colleagues bought them from him.

To simplify production, van Doren developed a manufacturing machine that was driven by a crank. The first reeds were made in the dining room of his Paris apartment; finally van Doren switched his profession entirely to reed manufacture and built a factory in the Parisian district of Montmartre (Rue Lepic 51).

Eugène van Doren's son Robert (* 1905) also learned to play the clarinet, studied at the Conservatoire de Paris , where he took first place. Since he also wanted to become a professional musician, he went on a concert tour through the United States for a year in 1928 , where he appeared as the first French clarinet soloist in New York's Radio City Music Hall . The sound of his instrument caught the eye, so that the reeds also became popular in the USA. In 1935 Robert van Doren took over the company and enlarged it by purchasing another production facility at 56 Rue Lepic, which is still Vandoren's headquarters today. He developed the 5RV mouthpiece.

Robert's son Bernard van Doren joined the family business in 1967. With his cooperation were u. a. developed the mouthpiece series B45, reduced the manufacturing tolerance of the reeds to less than 0.01 mm and increased production considerably. In 1990 he took over the management of Vandoren. The workshops were then relocated to Bormes-les-Mimosas ( Var département ) to the areas where the raw material reed was grown. The Paris headquarters now have test and rehearsal rooms for instrumentalists and the Espace Partitions sheet music store with clarinet and saxophone literature.

Products

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