” Vincent Bach was a brilliant musician and mechanical engineer by education. A century after manufacturing his first trumpets in New York City, he is still recognized for his significant contributions to the field of brass instrument design, acoustics, materials, and manufacturing.

Vincent, often a featured soloist with orchestras and radio programs, was well known in Europe and the US during the early 20^th century and was the first musician to play Stravinsky’s Petroushka & Firebird suite in the United States. As a musician and a bugle school instructor in the US Army during WWI, Vincent, unsatisfied with current mouthpiece offerings, experimented with improving mouthpiece designs, ultimately introducing Vincent Bach branded mouthpieces. After Vincent incorporated his business in 1922, he began to consider the quality of trumpets available and, through detailed benchmarking and experimentation, created the first Bach trumpet in 1924. The following year, Vincent introduced the Bach Stradivarius trumpet and later Bach Stradivarius trombones in the 1930s. Through examining shop cards from the early New York era, Vincent constantly refined and expanded his offerings through experimentation on design and materials, including incorporating feedback from players.

To celebrate the  100th anniversary year of the introduction of the first Bach trumpets, this presentation will share key examples of Vincent’s successes as a prominent musician & soloist, an entrepreneur when starting his mouthpiece and instrument business, as an engineer when designing and manufacturing his first trumpets in 1924, and as a marketer promoting his mouthpieces and instruments to both professional and education markets.”