Middle Eastern instruments
Mid-East is a family owned and operated musical instrument maker based in Melbourne, Florida. The story of Mid-East began in Ohio in 1973 when Alice Kundrat, a teacher of belly dancing, wanted some better finger cymbals for her students. Her husband, Steve Kundrat, who was a stockbroker at the time, volunteered “I can make them better and for less”, and it wasn’t long before the living room was turned into a makeshift factory, supplying zills to a number of dance studios. All four boys helped to count, clean, and bag zills, and within a few years Steve quit his job, and the family was in business.
To find a larger audience, the Kundrats took the show on the road, traveling to any number of fairs and festivals, with tables full of their instruments. With period costumes adding to the ambiance, they reached out to musicians from far and wide who enthusiastically received their historic and ethnic musical instruments.
Today, the company is housed in an 18,000 square foot warehouse in Florida. Mid-East designs and creates handcrafted, historic, and ethnic instruments from rich cultures all around the world. Instruments such as the harp, sitar, bodhran, oud, doumbek, ukulele, and dulcimer are but a few of the instruments we make easily accessible to musicians and enthusiasts worldwide.
