E.A. Couturier

Ernst Albert Couturier (September 30, 1869 in Poughkeepsie – February 28, 1950 in Wingdale) was best known as a cornet player who toured as a "virtuoso" performer on the concert programs of bands of the day. He promoted the Holton Band Instrument Company for a decade in that capacity before applying his own unique inventions to the production of his own line of brass band instruments between 1918 and 1923.

Life

E.A. Couturier was born September 30, 1869, in Poughkeepsie, New York to a family with three other children. At the age of fourteen, he began playing the cornet. He entered the New England Conservatory of Music in 1885, but withdrew and took a job repairing watches in his uncle's shop. In the 1880s he began playing professionally in bands such as the Twenty-first Regiment Band, the Eastman Business College Band, Innes Band, and the Gilmore band. The Frank Holton Company then hired Couturier to perform on, consult in the development of, and promote Holton cornets. The Holton New Model cornet was sold under the name "Couturier New Model" in the 1910s. Business matters were distracted from Couturier's playing for several years. Still, after the loss of his own company in 1923, he began playing again in Los Angeles until 1929 when he returned to Mt. Vernon New York. achieving his first patent, and seeing that patent built by the J.W. York company as the Couturier Wizard Model, Instruments built under Couturier's control between 1918 and 1923 can be identified by serial numbers ranging from 1000 to 9500.

Couturier was known to say, "After training for breath control and technical perfection, why must we remain at the mercy of inferior instruments?” Couturier turned to instrument design to address that problem, as did Vincent Bach, Elden Benge, Renold Schilke and Jerome Callet.

The continuous conical bore construction patented by Couturier was a core principle in his designs. E.A. Couturier company was known for the unique shape of the valve tubing, which, in its original and purest form did not support any tuning slide for fine pitch adjustment. Couturier and the company received numerous patents for conical bore instruments, a phonograph, the A/B-flat "quick change valve", and a mute design.