JOSEF

Born in 1954 in Okinawa, Yukio NAKAMURA had a successful performing career as an oboist in the Berlin Opera. Displeased with the state of oboe manufacturing, where the owners of major oboe manufacturers were non-oboists and several generations removed from the original maker, he moved back to Japan, established "MUSIK JOSEF", a musical instrument reeds and accessories shop, and undertook the study and the manufacture of the oboe. 

In 1991, the desire for a more perfect oboe drove him to open an oboe making workshop in Higashimatsuyama city, a suburb of Tokyo. He then invited a oboe Meister, Mr. Helmut Hager from Leipzig (Germany), who, over three months, taught him and his co-workers the basis of oboe manufacturing. Five months later, after Meister Hager went back to Germany, they completed their first oboe.

At that time the solo oboist at Radio Orchestra of Bayern, Mr. Manfred Clement, who tried Josef instruments declared : “I've been looking for 20 years such an instrument. It is a real gift from heaven for an oboist.”

Since then, Mr. Clement has keenly valued Josef oboes and offered his encouragements and his advice to realize the “Clement Model.” Later, English horn, oboe d'amore, clarinet and piccolo joined production.

In 2007, with the idea that a beautiful instrument should be made in a beautiful environment, the company moved to Nanjo city in Okinawa, where every employee in the factory has a window that faces the ocean.