Yanagisawa is owned by Conn-Selmer. Conn-Selmer currently encompasses two flute producing brands, and Yanagisawa is not one of them (Emerson and Armstrong, if I recall correctly). Yanagisawa produces Saxophones. This person probably had very little know about the flute and stuck a recognizable name on to it.

Yanagisawa is not owned by Conn-Selmer. CS is a distributor.

Joe B

Hi,

I'm new to the forum. Sorry to come to this thread late but I joined after doing an extensive internet search on Yanagisawa flutes, thus finding your forum. This thread appears to be one of the few sources of (limited) info so far.

I have a Yanagisawa flute in my possession. It's my mother's and was bought for her as a present from an aquaintance who used to play with a local orchestra. She never really had the time to devote to learning to play it properly and thus "loaned" it to my wife. I have no idea how much was paid for it as it was over 20 years ago. It appears very similar to the one in the photo posted above. On the main body, the engravement consists of a decorative "Y", then "YANAGISAWA", then "FLUTE", "100" and finally, "JAPAN".

My wife, being a beginner, has had quite a few lessons but finds it rather difficult to get a good tone, especially at the lower register. Her flute teacher also says that it is "not an easy flute to play". Being a non-flautist, I'm not sure what is meant by this. My wife finds that she can easily play a student flute such the Yamaha 211.

I understand that Yanagisawa are famous for their saxophones, but what about their flutes?

Can anyone help me out on this?
Much appreciated. Owen.

Hi,

Just done some more internet searching about a possible link between Yanagisawa and Hernals (for flutes) and have drawn a big fat blank.........................

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Thanks.

Yes, good idea. I'll get on it asap. Might take me a while as I'm at work and won't finish for another few hours or so.