It all goes back to 1618, in the city of Constantinople, where an Armenian man by the name of Avedis had hopes of becoming an alchemist. He was experimenting with different combinations of silver, iron and copper when he got an interesting end result from one batch - a sheet of metal that could make unique sounds without shattering! Instantly, Avedis realized what his discovery meant –cymbals forged from this metal would be better than other cymbals sold anywhere. Excited about the possibilities from his discovery, Avedis plotted to create a business making cymbals from his new metal alloy. He needed a name for the new company. Taking the Turkish word for a cymbal-maker (“zil”) and adding the Armenian suffix “ian” (meaning “son of”) to it, he came up with “Zildjian” meaning “son of cymbal maker”. In 1623, cymbal production at the new Avedis Zildjian Company got underway.
Skip ahead a few years later and you now have Sabian Cymbals, thanks to a man known as"RZ".
Robert founded Sabian in 1981 following a dispute with his brother, Armand, over control of the Avedis Zildjian Company, which was founded in Boston by their father in 1928. The Zildjian family has been making cymbals in their native Turkey since the early-17th century. Zildjian chose the name Sabian by taking the first two letters of the names of his three children: Sally, Bill and Andy.
The two companies remain competitors and world leaders in the cymbal business.
Sabian cymbals are still made in the southern New Brunswick town where the Zildjian company once had its production line.
Zildjian ran the second-largest cymbal manufacturer in the world behind only the Avedis Zildjian Company, according to several music equipment websites.
Robert Zildjian is survived by his wife, Willi, their three children and eight grandchildren. A full biography on Zildjian’s life can be found at Sabian’s website.
“We draw comfort from the knowledge that his spirit will live on in the music made by artists the world over.”--Unkown
