Jose Sales Escribano

A native of Antella, Valencia, Jose Sales Escribano began his musical studies at the Antella Music Protection Society and the Music School of the Alberic Musical Union Society. He studied at Madrid’s Amaniel Conservatory with Máximo Muñoz, soloist with the RTVE Orchestra, and completed advanced studies in music performance at the Valencia Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid with J. Vicente Peñarocha. He also studied with Walter Boykens and Guy Deplus. Sales has performed with the Antella Music Protection Society since 1981. He was a founding member of the Valencian Community Federal Band in 1991–1992, appearing at Expo ’92 in Seville and on major stages across Spain, and served as a clarinetist in the Army Music Unit of the Royal Artillery Academy in Segovia. He is a member of the Antella Quartet, In Memoriam Quartet, and Royal Global Clarinet Quartet. From 1998 to 2012, he taught clarinet at the Antella Musical Protective Society and the Señera Musical Society. His European festival appearances include Bregenz and Innsbruck in Austria, L’Avre in France, Athens, and Lisbon. Alongside his performing career, Sales is a specialist wind-instrument repair technician. He studied manufacturing processes with Joseph Mathews; bassoon manufacturing and acoustics with Michael Dicker at Minnesota State College Southeast in Red Wing; and metal restoration with Kevin Stiles. Through NAPBIRT training in Normal, Illinois, he took courses with Lee Hirschmann and Morrie Backun. He completed specialist studies with Yanich Ducasse and Marie Durot at Selmer Paris in 2011–2012 and studied pad manufacturing with Michel Ryckeboer at the Glotin factory, Chedeville-Lelandais, in Ezanville, France, in 2012. At the 2021–2022 Ibero-American Congress of Specialized Wind Instrument Technicians, he studied pad manufacturing, CNC milling and machine programming, G-code, and 2D and 3D musical-instrument drawing with Wolfgang Puszkar, as well as metal and wood restoration with Vincent Liaudet. He also participated in the congress in Caracas as an international technician. Sales joined NAPBIRT in 2009 and NAMIR Europe in 2012 and is a professional member of NAPBIRT and a member of NAMIR Europe. He also belongs to ADEC and the International Clarinet Association. He lectures on clarinet acoustics in Spain, Portugal, and Greece, working with Spanish artists including Salvador Vidal, Venancio Rius, and Enrique Pérez and international artists including Sergio Bosi, Marcio Pereira, Mario Adrover, and Wolfgang Meyer. In February 2024, he lectured on contemporary clarinet acoustics at the National Conservatory of Greece in Athens, and he has also lectured at the Lisbon Metropolitan Conservatory and Lisbon School of Music. His conference work includes ClarinetFest 2015 in Madrid, the Seventh Conference in Pozuelo de Alarcón, and the Eighth National Clarinet Conference in Torrent. In 2015, he opened a specialized workshop at an event chaired by German clarinetist Wolfgang Meyer. He has worked for more than 1,000 clarinetists across professional fields. Since 2015, he has served as Official SILICPRO Technical Service Spain for the SM-SPAIN brand. He is Royal Global’s official European technical service and distributor as well as a Royal Global artist.

Jose Sales performs on the Royal Global Firebird Soprano with a 65 mm Firebird barrel and a Pomarico Crystal mouthpiece. Royal Global is the first brand he has represented. He values the Firebird’s ease of playing, projection, precise tuning without dullness or unwanted resistance, evolved mechanism, carefully selected wood, centered registers, and resonant, professional sound. He describes it as an elite instrument suited to professional clarinetists. At the end of 2021, Yuan Gao entrusted him with becoming Royal Global’s official European technical service and later its distributor. That work introduced him to the brand, and he came to regard its instruments as some of the best on the professional market. Playing a Royal Global clarinet gives him tremendous confidence in its response and expressive possibilities, with what he describes as excellent and distinctive precision.