I'm really sorry to hear this. Owen made such a tremendous contribution, for so long. Susan Kline > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Bruce Dornfeld >To: pianotech >Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 8:05 PM >Subject: [pianotech] Owen Jorgensen > >I got a call today to let me know that Owen Jorgensen died >yesterday, Friday August 7. His family was with him. Some of us >saw him briefly in Grand Rapids where he was given the Golden Hammer >Award. Some of you know Owen well, and some may not know his >name. The following is the speech read for him at the Golden Hammer >Banquet just a few short weeks ago. > >Golden Hammer Award 2009 > > > >This year's recipient of the Golden Hammer Award began studying the >piano as a young boy. He studied with the best teachers available >and went on to study at the state university. He began to learn >piano tuning from the correspondence course by William Braid >White. A year after he began his own tuning business, he became a >Craftsman Member of the American Society of Piano Technicians. He >has been a member of the Piano Technicians Guild since the American >Society and the National Association of Piano Tuners merged in 1957. > > > >He soon found himself employed by a piano factory as the head tuner >and voicer. Shortly after that, he found himself working full time >for the State University. In addition to servicing the hundreds of >pianos there, he continued his study of piano performance. Five >years later, he was teaching a course in piano tuning at the University. > > > >His accomplishment as a teacher continues to be testified to by >numerous of his piano tuning students, many of them quite >accomplished and successful themselves. Many of them, I am happy to >see, are here with us tonight. He has also taught classes at over >thirty PTG Seminars and Technical Institutes. In addition to this >he has traveled to teach at many local chapter meetings. > > > >Our Golden Hammer recipient has also taught through his >writing. Since 1970 he has published twenty six articles for the >Piano Technicians Journal. To share the discovery of his >scholarship with all of us, he has also written three books. Any >serious student of our craft owns at least one of these books. They >have opened new vistas for our work and have also had a significant >influence in piano performance. > > > >It takes a keen intellect and diligent work ethic to look at what >has come before and find significantly different conclusions and >truths, from those commonly accepted, as a result of painstaking >research. His accomplished musicianship at the piano has also >introduced to us the proof of the pudding, known as the Temperament Recital. > > > >Ladies and Gentlemen: tonight we honor a quiet giant amongst >us. The author of Tuning the Historical Temperaments, and of The >Equal-Beating Temperaments, and his masterpiece Tuning: containing >The Perfection of Eighteenth-Century Temperament, The Lost Art of >Nineteenth-Century Temperament, and The Science of Equal >Temperament, complete with instructions for aural and electronic >tuning. We honor the man who changed the understanding and practice >of historical temperament tuning. We honor the man whose students, >in the US, Canada, and Mexico love him for his generosity and high >standards of excellence and for teaching and practicing the most >solid tuning lever technique and finest equal temperament. Tonight >we honor Owen Jorgensen. > > > >Bruce Dornfeld, RPT > ><mailto:bdornfeld at earthlink.net>bdornfeld at earthlink.net > >North Shore Chapter > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20090813/205b6e25/attachment.htm>
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