MaestroMD is a new and improved standard of care from Encore Etc., Inc. that sterilizes brass and wood wind instruments such as flutes, clarinets, saxophones and trumpets.

Laboratory studies have suggested that pathogenic bacteria can survive and thrive in a wind instrument – not only in the mouthpiece, but also inside the instrument itself for weeks, and even months.

Until now, music dealers and schools have used a variety of methods to clean, sanitize, and disinfect mouthpieces and instruments – good and necessary practices that, nonetheless, do not completely remove the microscopic pathogens left by previous players.

The MaestroMD Sterilization System is the only process available today that completely destroys 100% of all the bacteria on, in, and around the musical wind instrument and its case.

For years, the importance of not sharing personal items that we put in our mouths – from soda cans to toothbrushes – has been drilled into our consciousness. Physicians, dentists and government organizations like the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have cited the risks inherent in sharing these items.

But each year, hundreds of thousands of student musicians rent and play used instruments where they don’t know the health history of the previous player. And thousands of instruments are purchased every day through on-line auction sites, through want ads, or at yard sales where even less is known of the previous player.

We know that infectious microbes can live inside wind instruments, and when our mouths come into contact with them our risk of infection is increased. The question is, why risk getting sick from playing a wind instrument when there’s a practical and affordable solution?

In the mid 1990s, Dr. Lorenzo Lepore, a practicing dentist in Massachusetts, was approached by a school music teacher who had loaned a school-owned wind instrument to a sick student musician. She sought his advice before loaning it out to another student. Dr. Lepore instructed her to have the instrument sterilized but then learned that there was no accepted method for sterilizing instruments that likely harbored bacteria. Dr. Lepore set out to find a solution, and committed more than eight years to researching and identifying an EPA-approved sterilization process that could be used for wind instruments.

MaestroMD is NOW AVAILABLE through authorized school music dealers in the continental USA.

Depending on the size of the instrument, the cost to sterilize the most commonly played instruments starts at $35 and includes all shipping and handling.

MaestroMD has the capacity to sterilize virtually every known musical wind instrument. When placing an order for MaestroMD, you will be able to identify your instrument from hundreds of models and specific brands that constitute these popular wind instruments.

It’s quite simple. Encore Etc., Inc. sends all the materials and instructions required to pack and ship your instrument. After cleaning and drying the instrument, it is placed in its case and sealed in a specially engineered MaestroMD bag. It is shipped, pre-paid, to one of several sterilization facilities located across the country. The instrument is sterilized in its case and shipped back to you in approximately 10 business days.

Until Dr. Lepore began his research into the topic of wind instrument sterilization nobody had considered such risks. If you played an instrument as a child, you could very well have gotten strep or had one continuous health issue after another which could simply not have been explained. And pediatricians and doctors have not been programmed to ask, “Do you play a wind instrument?”, so nobody connected the dots.

The fact is, it takes epidemiologists and a considerable amount of health sleuthing to connect the dots. Consider the “discoveries” surrounding the danger of asbestos and lead paint. Our parents had no intention of putting us in harm’s way when our basements were filled with asbestos. Nor did we consider that our children would be eating the paint from window sills and contracting lead paint poisoning. Discovering these dangers took years.

In 2004, Dr. Lepore's efforts to have wind instruments considered with the same seriousness as medical devices were publicly validated. That year the FDA declared its support of Encore’s efforts in developing MaestroMD. The Agency issued a letter stating: “We agree that Encore Etc., Inc. is addressing a valid public health issue consistent with the universal precautions adhered to in medical/dental settings relative to instruments contaminated with body fluids.” Basically the FDA agreed that wind instruments should be treated the same way that medical devices are.

Formal medical studies on the millions of musical wind instruments in the general population have not been performed due to the exorbitant costs and logistics that would be involved in testing these instruments. In lieu of such broad population testing, Encore Etc., Inc. conducted laboratory-based scientific studies which proved that bacteria causing staph and strep infections, sore throats, and much more serious diseases such as meningitis and tuberculosis can survive and even grow inside a musical wind instrument.