2114 Cherokee St... | St. Louis, MO 63118 | 314-664-1234 | info@saxquest.com

Buffet Professional Clarinet Demo Day at Saxquest - August 31

When: Sat, Aug 31st 2013 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Where: Saxquest Shop
Cost: FREE!!
Sponsored By: Saxquest, Buffet

     As most of you know Saxquest has made a serious commitment over the past couple years towards serving the clarinet community here in the St. Louis area and neighboring states of Missouri and Illinois. We've hired classically trained clarinetist, Audrey Denny, as a clarinet specialist in our repair shop. She's been doing great things and has an exquisite touch with regards to tuning and properly setting up a clarinet to the most exacting and discriminating of professional standards. We've also brought in several clarinet artists such as Scott Andrews, Eric Mandat, Tim Zavadil, Charles West, Ramon Wadkowski and Diana Haskell to give clarinet masterclasses, performances and workshops in the shop. This will continue as we have Steve Cohen (Oct 12, 2-4pm) and Julie DeRoche (TBA) booked for next fall and more on the horizon.
     The next major step for Saxquest is to take on the financial commitment of stocking a large number of professional clarinets in the shop and maintaining and hand-selecting that inventory. Over the course of the past two months we've been talking with Buffet about gearing up for exactly this next step. I had a meeting with Buffet today and with the purchase agreement we've committed to, they have agreed to send us a large selection of R13 clarinets (20+ instruments - mix of both A and Bb's, but mostly Bb's) to hand select our initial inventory from. If there's interest, we can also get in Eb and bass clarinets too. We'll be receiving the instruments on Wednesday, August 28.
     We'll be hosting a Buffet Clarinet Demo Day at the shop on Saturday, August 31 (10am-2pm - open house style) and I'd like to take this opportunity to personally invite you (and if you have them, your students). It's very important to me that our inventory consist of only the very best instruments. As such, I'd love to get your feedback on this initial stock. We'll be keeping those clarinets that we select as being exceptional and sending back those that we feel are not quite there. We're setting our standards very high. If you can't make it on Saturday, you're welcome to drop by the shop anytime on Thursday or Friday (29th and 30th) too.
     If what were doing has value to you and it's important to you to have a viable clarinet shop like this in St. Louis, please help us in this endeavor by coming out and giving us your feedback if you can.
     Most importantly, please help by spreading the word about what we're up to and sending your clarinet students and fellow clarinet playing friends down to Saxquest when they're considering upgrading their equipment. This is a serious commitment for us and we need the support of the local community and surrounding regions to pull it off. Our prices will always match the best discounted prices offered online and by any of the other national clarinet retailers. We'll also include for free a full professional set up which is a 3-5 hour process. Further, anyone purchasing an R13 or other professional Buffet clarinet this year will get a FREE option to have custom cork pads installed in the upper joint. Lastly, our warranty always covers free servicing for the first year for any instrument purchased from our shop.
     My goal is to eliminate the need for players in and within driving distance of St. Louis to ever have to mail order a professional clarinet. That's just a crazy norm for a city metro area the size of St. Louis, especially given its easy drive from surrounding regions. Its so much better for the player to have a large hand-selected stock to choose from where instruments can easily be played in familiar settings and have local servicing. This is really only possible at the local/regional level. But it will only ultimately come to fruition if the word gets out!!! I still believe in the Field of Dreams slogan, "build it and they will come". So, again, if this is something that is important to you and you see value in it please help us build it here in St. Louis.

Cheers,
     Mark Overton
     www.saxquest.com