The Selmer Company

Conn-Selmer

Type	Private (subsidiary of Paulson & Co.)
Industry	Musical instruments
Headquarters	Elkhart, Indiana, United States
Number of locations	Around 5 facilities (2011)
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	John Stoner, Jr. President (since 2002)
Products	Brasswinds Percussion Strings
Parent	Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc.
Divisions	C.G. Conn Glaesel King Leblanc Ludwig Scherl & Roth Selmer Vincent Bach Vito Wm. Lewis & Son Yanagisawa
Website	www.conn-selmer.com

Conn-Selmer, Inc. is an American manufacturer of musical instruments for concert bands, marching bands and orchestras. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Steinway Musical Instruments and was formed after Steinway bought United Musical Instruments in 2003.

In the late Nineteenth Century, brothers Alexandre and Henri Selmer graduated from the Paris Conservatory as clarinetists. They were the great-grandchildren of French military drum major Johannes Jacobus Zelmer, grandchildren of Jean-Jacques Selmer, the Army Chief of Music, and two of 16 children in this musical family. At the time, musical instruments and accessories were primarily hand made, and professional musicians found it necessary to acquire skills allowing them to make their own accessories and repair and modify their own instruments. Establishing Henri Selmer & Cie. in 1885, Henri began making clarinet reeds and expanded into mouthpieces and clarinets by 1898. By 1900 Henri had gained a reputation for his reeds and mouthpieces and he opened a store and repair shop in Paris. In 1904, Selmer clarinets were presented at the Saint Louis (USA) World's Fair, winning a Gold Medal, and Henri Selmer's brother Alexandre was First Clarinetist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Alexandre Selmer established himself in New York the following year, opening a shop that sold Selmer clarinets and mouthpieces. The H&A Selmer (USA) Company grew out of that retail operation.

In 1910, Alexandre returned to France and the H&A Selmer store was managed by George Bundy. The company expanded its product line, selling "Selmer" branded wind instruments and mouthpieces from manufacturers in the USA in addition to Selmer (Paris) clarinets. In 1923, the H&A Selmer Company was incorporated to expand into a retail chain and a 49% share sold to C. G. Conn Ltd. In 1927 Bundy gained full ownership, establishing independence of Selmer (USA) from Selmer (Paris). It remained the sole importer of Selmer (Paris) products, including saxophones and brasswinds once exports of such instruments to the USA commenced. Selmer (USA) also went on to establish itself as a leading distributor of student-grade instruments under its Bundy brand. In the 1930s Selmer financed the startup Artley Flute Company of Elkhart Indiana, which provided flutes, and later clarinets, exclusively to Selmer until 1953. In 1961 Selmer acquired the brasswind manufacturer Vincent Bach Corporation. Moving production from Bach's Mount Vernon, New York facility to Elkhart, Indiana in 1965, Selmer started in-house production of Bundy student-line brass instruments in addition to its premium line, Bach Stradivarius. In 1963 Selmer acquired ownership of its main supplier of student saxophones, the Buescher Band Instrument Company. Selmer continued distributing identical Bundy and Buescher instruments until it discontinued the Buescher name in 1983. In 1977 Selmer acquired the stringed instrument maker Glaesel. Selmer acquired the Ludwig Drum Company in 1981.