Music Trade Review

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12
.THE . MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
NOVEMBER 3, 1923
PITTSBURGH TRADE LOOKS FOR GOOD HOLIDAY BUSINESS
VOCATIONAL COMMITTEE APPOINTED
Horace Hays,President of E. G. Hays Co., Voices Trade's Opiniori" Before Company's Salesmen's
Meeting-Jacob Schoenberger Celebrates Golden Wedding-Lechner & Schoenberger Alterations
National Industrial Conference Board to Study
Question of Vocational Training
to a music room in a house or apartment. The
color scheme and draperies and settings will
be in keeping with the high standard of the
piano on display. The remainder of the floor
will be utilized for the display and demonstra­
tion of player pianos handled by the company.
The changes will soon be completed and will
g ive the firm a very satisfactory method of dis­
playing and demonstrating its stock of instru­
ments. The company handles the celebrated
Kranich & Bach pianos and reproducing pianos,
as well as the Starr, Gulbransen, Conover and
Kingsbury pianos and player-pianos.'
Piano manufacturers who have worked for
the need of increased vocational training activi­
ties in the public schools of the country, in
order to provide for filling the vacancies of the
future with men possessing a proper degree of
technical ability, will be interested in the fact
that the National Industrial Conference Board,
10 East Thirty-ninth street, New York City, has
appointed a committee of business and educa­
tional leaders to discuss the question. The de~
mand is said to be far greater than the ability
of the nation's technical schools to graduate
men of the caliber required. It is estimated
that by 1930 there will be at least 200,000 new
positions of responsibility in industry to be
filled, whereas there are available in the tech­
nical schools at the present only about 50,000
students. Enrollment in these schools in 1920,
when the first of the graduates aiming to be
the future leaders in industry took up study,
was 51,908, and to-day the enrollment is only
52,290.
The joint conference committee is now hold­
ing a series of meetings in N ew York to seek a
~tlllJ"j
PITTSBURGH, PA., October 30.- 0ne of the pleas­
ing social events in local piano circles the past
week was the golden wedding anniversary of
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schoenberger, which was
celebrated at their home on Ben Hur street,
East End, on Friday afternoon, October 26.
Mr. Schoenberger is the president of the Lech­
ner & Schoenberger Co., one of the best known
music houses in western Pennsylvania.
There were present at the dinner celebration
thirty persons, including the children and grand­
children of :Mr. and Mrs. Schoenberger. In
the evening there was an informal reception in
the assembly room of the Swedenborgian
Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. Schoenberger
are members. The minister, Rev. Homer Syn­
nestvedt, made a congratulatory address to
which Mr. Schoenberger responded in a suitable
manner. The day was one long to be remem­
bered by Mr. and Mrs. Schoenberger and their
children. They were married October 26, 1873.
.Mr. Schoenberger is well known in music trade
circles and is highly esteemed.
Horace Hays, president of the E. G. Hays
Co., Lester piano and Brunswick phonograph
dealers , addressed a "Booster meetin g" of the
salesmen connected with the company who
cover tht; ),tIonongahela Yalley. The meeting
was held at IvIonessen and was preceded by a
dinner. Mr. Hays made one of his characteristic
"inspirational" talks to the sales force, which
numbered twenty-four persons. In speaking of
business conditions, Mr. Hays said to The Re­
view representative:
"Our business has gone steadily forward for
the past few months in a manner that is most.
pleasin~.
Our August was the best August we
ever enjoyed and the same can be said of Sep­
tember and October. Our business in the out­
iying sections of the country has been excep­
tionally good. vVe have sold a vast number
of pianos and player-pianos and have sold them
to persons whose ability to meet their obliga­
tions was unquestioned. As a result of the
meeting of our sales force held at Monessen I
am convinced that we will have very good re­
sult s from that territory this vVinter. The en­
tire Monongahela Valley from an industrial
standpoint is doing well and this is bound to
bring about good business for all lines of
trade in \vhich the piano and allied trades
must necessarily share." Mr. Hays spen t sev­
era l days at- the pla nt of th Q -L cs t-er....P iano.-Co.; J
Lester, Pa., and then spent several days in
New York City before returning home.
Pittsburgh has just had a week of magni·ficent
operatic performances by the Wagnerian Opera
Company. The San Carlo Grand Opera Com­
pany will be at the A lvin Theatre here one
week, commencing Monday, December 10. John
:NlcCormack, the well-known singer and Victor
artist, will be heard at Syria Mosque on Mon­
day evening, November 19. It is two years
since M cCormack was last heard in Pittsburgh.
In speaking of business conditions, Mrs. C. C.
Mullen, s ecretar y of the Hendricks Piano Co.,
said: "Our business is showing up very well
for the first weeks of the Fall and as I view
it, we undoubtedly will have a very satisfactory
holiday season, judging from the reports that
are coming to our sales department. One of
the features, we find, is the demand for high­
g rade pianos and player-pianos."
Th e L echner & Schoenberger Co. is making
extens ive alterations and changes to the fifth
floor of its building and sales rooms at 631
Liberty avenue. This floor will be used here­
after exclusively for the display and demonstra­
tion of player-pianos and reproducing pianos.
In the rear there will be a room specially de­
voted to reproducing pianos and their demon­
stration. Adjoining it will be a smaller room
fitted up so as to give the visitor a correct
idea of the space that a grand piano takes in
a room. This room will be arranged similar
VINCENT LOPEZ AND THE AMPICO
Prominent Orchestra Leader Uses Ampico in
Specially Decorated Knabe Grand As Feature
of Vaudeville Act With His Orchestra
Vincent L opez, the prominent orchestra
leader whose Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra is
popular in the vaudeville field, is using an Am­
pico in a specially decorated Knabe grand to
Vincent Lopez and the Ampico
excellent effect as a feature of his act. M1'.
remedy for the difficulty. A call will soon be
T ,opez directs his orchestra from the seat of the
issued from the confere nce board for the second
piano and in one period of the act the lights are
session of the industrialists in full committee.
suddenly dimmed and when they shine forth
It was said at the conference board that the
again no one is at the piano but the keys are
demand for young men with capacity for be··
seen to move and the music comes forth with
coming administrative or technical ' leaders is
all the naturalness of Lopez's own playing, the
already far greater than the number of such
effect being produced through the medium of his
men now being graduated from the engineering
own Ampico recordings.
schools.
The accompanying cut shows Mr. Lopez
seated at his Ampico; the instrument is deco­
BUYS A. H. TODD'S INTEREST
rated in white, gold and green and has a rich
cover of brocade. The whole effect is one of
MONONGAHELA, P A., October 31.-Announcement
the outstanding features of the act.
has been recently made that E. H. Stevens, who
has been conducting a retail music store; piano
and sewing-machine agency in the McGregor
GIFT TO UNITED EMPLOYES
Building at 214 Main street, with A. H . Todd,
A check of $500 was presented to the Sick
has purchased the latter's interest in the busi­
Benefit Fund of the cnited PianQ Corp., N or­
ness. The partnership existing between these
walk, 0., recently by President James H. Wil­ men has heen legally dissolved and obligations
liams, of the United Piano Corp., who made
for same have been assumed by E. H. Stevens.
good his promise to help this fund as soon as
it showed signs of development. A special
R. O. Falk has just been added to the sales
noon meetin g of the workers was held at the
force of the Story & Clark Piano Co., New
plant for the presentation of the check and
Ybrk, and will work out of the Thirty-second
much enthusiasm was manifested when the an­
street warerooms. Mr. Falk comes from Chi­
nouncement was made.
.cago.