Today I will recount an experience from my past.

A number of years ago I was the tuner for the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, California.  In this capacity I tuned weekly for the San Francisco Symphony and several times a week for other visiting artists.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to tune for Ferrante and Teicher (a famous piano duo - see http://ferranteandteicher.com)  a number of times.  They usually played Baldwin concert grands (supplied by the local Baldwin dealers wherever they performed),  but at Flint Center, they used our Steinway and our Baldwin concert grands together.  They really liked the way the two pianos worked together.

The usual tuning procedure for their performances was fairly involved.  I would prepare the pianos and have them waiting at around 5:00 pm when the artrists would arrive for their practice and warmup session.  After about an hour of practice, I would retune the pianos and have them ready for the performance at around 7:00 pm.  During intermission, I would again go out on stage and touch up the tunings for the 2^nd half of the concert.

Ferrante and Teicher did a lot of talking, story and joke telling between numbers.  After I did the intermission tuning, I packed up my bag and went home.  It had been a long day and I was tired.  Anyway, the next day two of my regular customers called me and asked where I was last night.   It seems that after the first number of the second half, they stopped and said, “you people here in the Santa Clara Valley are lucky.  You have one of the best piano tuners in the country right here.  We have been trying to knock these pianos out of tune all night, but they won’t budge.  We’d like Mr. Jim Johnson to come out on stage and take a bow.”  Needless to say, I didn’t come out because I was almost home by that time. 

My one big chance to be recognized for my tuning work and I was not present!

The next time Ferrante and Teicher were in town, I apologized to them for not being there and maybe embarrassing them.  They were most gracious with me and even laughed about it.  I sure liked working with them.