Staff & Contributors

Other contributors to the current issue:

Ori Bukai owns and operates Allegro Pianos in Stamford, Connecticut, which specializes in the sale of new and restored high-end pianos. Visit his website at www.allegropianos.

Brian Chung is Senior Vice President of Kawai America Corporation and a leading proponent of the benefits of making music. He is also a pianist, and co-author of Improvisation at the Piano: A Systematic Approach for the Classically Trained Pianist. Visit his website at www.brianchung.net.

Delwin D. Fandrich has worked as a piano tuner, rebuilder, researcher, designer, and builder for over five decades. He has served as principal design and technical consultant for leading pianomakers worldwide. Fandrich has presented technical classes and seminars around the world, and has authored numerous technical articles in the Piano Technicians Journal. He can be reached at ddfandrich@gmail.com.

Stephen Fortner has been a keyboardist since early childhood, and has played professionally since age 14. He was technical editor of Keyboard magazine from 2006 to 2009, and its editor-in-chief from 2009 through 2015. He has since founded Fortner Media, a content-strategy firm. He can be reached at stephen@fortnermedia.com.

Mike Kemper is a Los Angeles-based piano technician and expert on electronic player-piano systems. He can be reached at mkbizmail@icloud.com.

Jerry Kovarksy is a jazz and popular-music pianist/keyboardist with a BA in Jazz Studies. He worked for 30+ years with various electronic-keyboard companies as a Brand/Product Manager, Marketing Director, and Product Developer. The author of Keyboard for Dummies, he now plays professionally throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

George Litterst is a nationally known music educator, clinician, author, performer, and music-software developer. He is the coauthor of several musical applications for iPad, Mac and PC, including SuperScore Music, Home Concert Xtreme, Classroom Maestro, and Internet MIDI. These applications work with technology-equipped pianos and are available from TimeWarp Technologies.

Over the past 35 years, piano technician Sally Phillips has worked in virtually every aspect of the piano industry: service, retail, wholesale, and manufacturing. In her role as a concert-piano technician, she has tuned and prepared pianos for concert and recording work in such venues as Town Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. At present, Phillips lives in Georgia and works throughout the southeastern U.S. She can be contacted at sphillipspiano@hotmail.com.

Scott Reitz is a freelance journalist currently enrolled in the Piano Technology program at North Bennet Street School. When not chasing perfect unisons or splicing bass strings, he can be found on his motorcycle, hunting down tacos in Los Angeles. Write him at scottreitz@gmail.com.

Alden Skinner was involved in both the manufacturing and retail sides of the piano business for over 20 years. He currently works in the high-end audio/video industry.

Chris Solliday, RPT, services the pianos at several institutions, including Lafayette College and Lehigh University. He lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, and can be reached through his website at www.csollidaypiano.com.

Chris Storch, RPT, is an acoustician with 25 years’ experience in the areas of architectural acoustics, noise and vibration control, and environmental noise abatement. Some of the more prominent projects on which he has consulted include Verizon Hall, in Philadelphia; Sibelius Hall, in Lahti, Finland; LG Arts Center, in Seoul, South Korea; and Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Storch is a 2009 graduate of the Piano Technology program at the North Bennet Street School, in Boston. He tunes and services pianos in the Boston area, and conducts research in piano acoustics in his spare time. He can be reached at chrisstor@aol.com.