Parsons Music Corporation, headquartered in Hong Kong, was founded in 1986 by Terence and Arling Ng as a small music-lesson studio. Since then it has become China’s largest music retailer, with more than 100 retail locations and 80 music schools throughout China and Hong Kong. In 1997, the company expanded into manufacturing pianos and other musical instruments, and is now the third largest piano maker in China.

At present, all of the pianos Parsons makes for sale in this part of the world are made for and distributed by other companies under those companies’ own brand names. However, Parsons manufactures and sells, in China and Hong Kong, its own house brands, Yangtze River, Toyama, and Schönbrunn; manufactures the brand Barrate & Robinson, which it licenses the right to sell in China; has a strategic alliance with Kawai, in which Parsons distributes Kawai pianos in China, and manufactures select Kawai models for sale only in Parsons Music’s stores in China; is the majority shareholder of the German piano makers Grotrian and Wilh. Steinberg and manufactures some of the Wilh. Steinberg models in China; and cooperates in the manufacture of the Pianoforce electronic player-piano system, and distributes it in China and Hong Kong. Parsons Music’s commitment to piano manufacturing is also demonstrated by its ownership of an iron-plate foundry, a wood-processing facility, and even the forests in which the wood for its instruments is grown. In recent years, Parsons has become known within the piano-manufacturing community as the source of some of the best-made pianos from China.