Hanson clarinets

Hanson Clarinet Company is a manufacturer of high-quality woodwind instruments including clarinets, saxophones and flutes. The company is perhaps most famous for their clarinets which are made in their workshops in Marsden, West Yorkshire.

Contents

1 Key staff members

2 Clarinet models

3 External links

Key staff members

Hanson Clarinets is a trading name of Hanson International (Music) Ltd. which is owned and operated by husband and wife Alastair and Jenny Hanson. Together with their small team they have expanded the business to become the largest manufacturer of woodwind instruments in the United Kingdom.

Alastair Hanson began playing in a local band at the age of four. Upon completing his studies of music and instrument technology in 1989 he began his first company and went on to work in cooperation with instrument manufacturers all around the world. Although Alastair still finds time to play professionally most of his time is devoted to instrument making. Alastair Hanson's expertise and experience in instrument design and production is recognised by even the largest musical instrument producers, generating international demand for his services as a consultant within the industry.

Jenny Hanson is a professional viola player and playing takes up much of Jenny's time. Since graduating from Royal College of Music, London, Jenny has appeared in concert, on stage, in film and recorded with many of the country's leading orchestras and international artists. Her playing career is diverse; Classical, Pop, Folk or Opera; From Shirley Bassey in Hyde Park to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in her native highlands of Scotland. Recording work includes regular sessions at Abbey Road and Shepperton Studios whilst international tours provide an exciting opportunity to play to audiences around the world.

Jenny and Alastair were married in August 2003.

At the Hanson clarinet workshop in Marsden is a small dedicated team made of instrument makers and CAD/CAM programmers; Each Hanson clarinet begins life as a set of complex design drawings on our state of the art 3D Delcam CAD system facilitated by Andrew Linton. After many years experience in the tooling industry Andrew was personally recommended to Hanson's by Delcam Software and his fresh approach to designs from outside the musical instrument industry has been invaluable to many of Hanson's new concept products.

Every single instrument has its final set up and play testing by either Christopher Hirst or Alastair Hanson. Chris Hirst joined Hanson's after a number of years working for SERCO and City of Bradford Education where he was responsible for the instrumental stocks and formerly many years as an instrument repairer with companies in Manchester and Huddersfield.

Maria Lakin is the first point of contact for most of Hanson Clarinets UK customer base. Maria joined Hansons after purchasing a series 5 Hanson alto saxophone such was her enthusiasm for the product! Having reached a high level on piano at school Maria wanted to learn to play the alto sax and was therefore sharing similar experiences with many of the Hanson's callers. With a background in customer service and sales in the holiday and leisure industry Maria's positive approach and helpful good nature has prompted scores of letters of thanks from satisfied customers.

Hanson clarinets have made commitment to protect the African blackwood trees, which provide grenadilla wood for clarinets, from being eliminated. In its effort to protect the over-harvesting of African blackwood / grenadilla, Hanson's have started making several models of 'reinforced grenadilla' clarinets. These are made of a composite of Grenadilla (ground up scraps from other manufacturing processes) and ebonite. These 'reinforced' instruments do not have the issue of possible cracking due to environmental changes that are typically seen in clarinets and other wood instruments and as a result Hansons offer a lifetime warranty on these instruments. The manufacture process produces a natural grain in the material which is visually stunning.

Hanson clarinet company also is the first European maker to offer a lie of fine rosewood instruments at intermediate as well as professional level. This is facilitated by their unique machining process for the bodies of the clarinets which involves no turning of the wood; the bodies are machined using 60000rpm live cutting tools which can process the rosewood without difficulty.

Clarinet models

Student clarinets
HE-3 and HE-5. Made of machined ebonite usually supplied as a package with Vandoren accessories (HE-3V).

Intermediate clarinets
SE-G
SE-R
SE-BTR

Grenadilla, rosewood and reinforced grenadilla intermediate models.

Professional clarinets
T5-G
T5-R
T5-BTR

T6-G
T6-R
T6-BTR

T7-G
T7-R
T7-BTR

Grenadilla, rosewood and reinforced grenadilla professional models.

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