1989 - Music of the Spheres opens in Larry's garage with a few hand tools and some galvanized steel tubing. His earliest chimes had wooden clappers and home-oven cooked wind-catchers. 1991 - The need for more space motivated Larry to rent a shop on St. Elmo Ave in S. Austin, Texas. The budding company had only 5 employees during most of this period and about 100 chimes were built per week. The "shipping department" at St. Elmo was a friend of Larry's who would carry the completed chimes to the Post Office in the trunk of her car when enough orders were ready. 1995 - The continued need for more space motivated the move to Industrial Blvd, also in S. Austin, Texas. The new shop was twice as big as the old one and it finally had an air-conditioned cutting room. The growth of the business really took off during this period. 1998 - The shop moves to its current location on East Cesar Chavez with about 16 employees and what seemed at the time to be more space than we could ever use. Our current location has two large buildings and a smaller business office. One building is wholly devoted to warehousing pipe stock. The other one has separate rooms for cutting, end finishing and tuning, drilling, assembly and inspection, as well as shipping and storage of additional components. 2000 to 2002 - The Music of the Spheres™ team has grown to around 40 with everyone pulling together to meet production demands during a tough period following the loss of our owner and founder, Larry Roark in March of 2001. Business-wise, our chimes continue to be hand-made with the same attention to quality and detail, and sales have never been stronger. During this period many business advances, such as a new website, an in-house computer network, a new accounting program, a new fax system, and new machines to build and tune our chimes, have been put in place. All of these projects are aimed at enhancing our ability to make superior chimes and provide first-class customer service, both now and in the years to come. 2003 - The business continues to grow both in sales and in square footage. Taking advantage of a rather fortunate vacancy next door we have been able to relocate and increase the size of our accounting offices and also reorganize a substantial portion of our warehouse and shipping space. These moves were planned so as to make room for an expansion of our production area in the original building later this year. A number of web projects are also underway which are aimed at increasing customer satisfaction (for both wholesale and retail customers) as well as helping our reps at shows and on the road. On the production floor we have setup new systems and procedure to increase production capacity while at the same time ensuring quality. We continue to be mindful that the core of our business is the great care we take to make our chimes look and sound their best. Larry Roark May 15, 1955 - March 6, 2001 Our founder, Larry Roark died tragically in a car accident on March 6, 2001. He had graduated from North Texas State University cum laude with a degree in music theory in 1978, and also performed graduate work. After college he served on the staff of the Texas Women's University performing stage lighting and then played the euphonium with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus Band for several seasons. A consummate musician, Larry played with many other groups including the Austin Symphony, the Creative Opportunity Orchestra, the Austin Klezmorim, the Vascilating Discombubulators, and the First Baptist Church voice and handbell choirs. Larry also served as a host of Austin Texas' KUT, Austin Texas' NPR affiliate, Radio's Overnight show for several years and then continued thereafter to guest host. Please see KUT Radio's tribute for more information on Larry's years on the air. Larry was a truly kind and gentle man with a passion for beauty and spirituality which he expressed through music and art photography. At Music of the Spheres™, Larry's vision was simply to make the most durable chimes of the highest acoustic quality possible; "the Stadivarius of windchimes". The tremendous outpouring of letters of appreciation, demand and intense customer loyalty over the years confirms Larry's achievement. Through his many years of working shows, fairs and festivals he felt his customer's appreciation directly. He worked to please his customers and himself. His vision of "world peace - one backyard at a time" was genuine and heartfelt.

©2001 Music of the Spheres™. All rights reserved.