J'Élle Stainer is a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

manufacturer specialising in large

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

s based in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. They are notable for building some of the first

subcontrabass saxophone The subcontrabass saxophone is the largest of the family of saxophones that Adolphe Sax described in his 1846 patent. He called it the ''saxophone bourdon'', named after the very low-pitched 32′ bourdon pedal stop on large pipe organs. Alth ...

s, the largest of the family of instruments conceived of by its Belgian inventor in the 1840s,

Adolphe Sax Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (; 6 November 1814 – 7 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, and redesigne ...

. In the 2000s, J'Élle Stainer made

contrabass saxophone The contrabass saxophone is the second-lowest-pitched extant member of the saxophone family proper. It is pitched in E♭ one octave below the baritone saxophone, which requires twice the length of tubing and bore width. This renders a very ...

s for the popular large church orchestras of the

Christian Congregation in Brazil The Christian Congregation in Brazil () was founded in Brazil by the Italian-American missionary Luigi Francescon (1866–1964), as part of the larger Christian Congregation (Pentecostal), Christian Congregation movement. History Louis Frances ...

. In 2010 they produced the first working subcontrabass saxophone, albeit in a more compact form than originally envisaged, more than 160 years after Sax first described it in his 1846 patent. This instrument was shown that year at Expomusic. In 2013, J'Élle Stainer completed the second full-size subcontrabass saxophone, after German maker Benedikt Eppelsheim built the first a year earlier. It stands high and weighs . J'Élle Stainer also make a ''stainerfone'', a contrabass saxophone built in a more compact form, comparable in size to a

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone (sometimes abbreviated to "bari sax") is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass saxophone, bass. It is the lowe ...

References

External links

* {{Musical instrument stub Saxophones Musical instrument manufacturing companies of Brazil