I have a student of mine who is from Japan and intends to return home in a few days. She recieved a Bachelors in Piano Performance in June. During her last two years she has trained in all aspects of action rebuilding , tuning and voicing. She just finished a three month internship tuning for the Aspen Musical Festival. She set on doing piano work but there is only one problem. Japan is a closed shop. She visited the Apollo Piano factory last December in her home town of Hamamatsu. She was given a tour of the factory with a personal escort. At the end of the tour she was invited to enroll in the Apollo Factory School for a two year program. As I understand it technicians all over Japan "belong" to a specific manufacturer. If Naomi wants to tune or be a technician in Japan she must attend one of the factory schools for certification otheriwse there is no work. I did hear of a special retailer, maybe in Tokyo somewhere, who sold only imported pianos. If anyone knows about this or has any other suggestion let us hear it. Michael Wathen University of Bob
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