The history of Preissler Music – your support on stage!
It was in spring of 1992, when Tom Preissler received a call from the German TV channel ZDF asking him to provide two timpani for rent for a live performance by the legendary band “Queen” with their singer Freddie Mercury in the former famous TV show “Der große Preis“. Because it wasn’t just in Berlin that word got around that he had a large variety of percussion and drums collected for his work as a teacher for classical percussion & drums at a music school in Berlin and also at the university.
In short, the ZDF rented the timpani from him. But it was not to be alone. Shortly after, for Freddie Mercury and Queen the timpani were needed again on television and also needed for an orchestra at the International Radio Exhibition IFA in Berlin. Tom Preissler did a lot of research on this topic and noticed that there was quite a great need for rental instruments in particular for the classical sector. Thus the idea was born to have his instruments used not only in the teaching room, but also on the big stages. In order to handle the whole thing officially correctly, he took the initiative and officially registered the company “Preissler Percussion – Rent A Drum” as a trade mark and rental company.
The income from the rental was used to finance additional instruments and repairs. And slowly but steadily more and more inquiries came. He actually planned to use the instruments primarily in lessons for his students and only rent them out for their preservation. Neither the music school nor the university could provide the funds to purchase their own instruments. Ultimately, the demand grew and the range of instruments grew. Towards the end of the 1990s there were 400 different instruments. An incredible milestone and simply fantastic as pure teaching material for a teacher and lecturer on percussion instruments. The instruments were used in large percussion concerts with his students on well-known stages in Berlin.
In the years that followed, the number of percussion instruments purchased grew steadily and there was hardly anything left that Tom Preissler didn’t have available for rent and for lessons. And it would certainly have remained just a rental of percussion instruments if the brutal terrorist act on September 11, 2001 in the USA and its consequences had not occurred. After the terrorist attacks, orchestras from the USA in particular had major problems getting their instruments back from airport controls after returning from a tour. For security reasons, this also affected orchestras from other parts of the world. It could take 4 weeks or more until the orchestras were ready to play again.
This meant that Tom Preissler quickly received many requests for complete equipment with all major instruments. Suddenly there was a demand for high-quality double basses, concert harps, brass instruments, celestas and more. But he had none of these in his inventory and had to laboriously borrow and collect these instruments from all corners of Germany. It quickly became clear that a pure drum rental service would not be able to cope with the market in the long term. In 2011, the company was renamed “Preissler Percussion – Rent A Drum” to Preissler Music – your support on stage! and the business area was expanded to include the rental of all kinds of musical instruments.
From then on it was a long, hard journey to acquire these very expensive and valuable instruments. And each of these instruments has its own, sometimes even adventurous story, how it found its way to Preissler Music. This included not only classical orchestral instruments, but also a variety of backlines for jazz and rock. Keyboards, digital pianos, stage pianos, concert guitars, electric guitars, electric basses and even an original HAMMOND B3 organ from 1954 also found their home at Preissler Music.
But there was increasingly another problem for all international orchestras traveling to Europe. The costs for airline cargo and also for insurance are rising steadily and rapidly. Even top, highly professional orchestras have difficulty meeting these costs. More and more instruments have been and are being rented for an orchestra tour in order to save costs. We at Preissler Music are increasingly being commissioned to fully equip orchestra trips with all larger instruments, all conceivable accessories and also the orchestra transport itself. With this complete service from a single source and the high-value musical instruments, Preissler Music is unique in Germany and Europe.
Today there are over 2,000 different instruments. And there is hardly a large orchestral instrument that cannot be found in Preissler Music’s warehouse. Double basses from old master luthiers, many over 100 years old. Likewise, wind instruments from contrabassoon to bass clarinet, tuba to sousaphone and percussion and drums are really endless.
Many hundreds of professional orchestra chairs, music stands, desk lights, conductor’s podiums and other orchestra accessories of all kinds are part of the rental equipment from Preissler Music. We are proud to have a total of 3,800 rental items in our warehouse. All purchased in painstakingly small steps, without ever taking out a loan. After 32 years of Preissler Music and incredible 50 years of Tom Preissler’s professional career, everything is now complete and the goal has been achieved, towards which he worked tirelessly for decades with the active support of his team.
But there will always be a desired instrument in our dreams. The variety of sounds and musical instruments from all cultures around our globe is extremely diverse and inestimably large. It’s far too big to really have everything. And it would be presumptuous to think to could ever achieve something like that.
We, as the Preissler Music team, can only try to get as close as we can…