He couldn't accept as illness in the family meant he had to come home.”ĭavid would be a gift to the organisation, where craftsmanship is paramount and each Steinway is hand built with 12,000 parts.Īnd he's no mean pianist! He has achieved his Grade 7 piano exams already. Next day offered him a green card to work with them in America. He went there in 1986 and called in on the world famous Steinway organisation and told them about the business back home in Derry.
His sister is a district nurse so David is the only one of his family to continue tuning. Thankfully there were no locks on the doors.”ĭavid has three brothers, two in engineering and one the sales manager in the company, spending his day surrounded by guitars, flutes, drums – in fact, just about every musical instrument you can think of. “There couldn't be any place better for tuning purposes – each cell was a soundproof tuning booth. All this took place in an old refurbished police station. white hard polish, hammers and silver steel strings set to the exact tension. He talked of shims, varnish, button polish. "This involved stripping the mahogany instrument down to the carcass and then the intricate business of building it up again.” In my second year our task was to completely rebuild a small Welmar Upright and in June it was the completion of rebuilding a Morley semi-concert grand which was a lot bigger job," David recalled. “What was new to me was rebuilding pianos. He was learning a unique style of precision engineering. He soon made friends and immediately impressed with his knowledge, based on the experience he'd gained working with his father on historic pianos such as the Mueller-Schiedmayer grand in Omagh, on which the 19th century Irish composers for Tales of a Travelled Piano – An Irish Story were recorded. I was 18, nervous of being on my own and having to stand on my own two feet,” David said. “But through time I began to actively work together with my father before heading off in 2014 to Nottinghamshire and a three-year piano tuning, maintenance and repair course at Newark, the only place of its kind in the UK. When 21-year-old David was growing up he often went with his father Brian during his travels tuning pianos but the boy didn't really enjoyed it it seemed unlikely he'd keep up the family tradition. It's not unusual to find a rock band in the shop playing their hearts out or people jiving to a live band in the corner. Today, under the title Henderson Music, they stock all musical instruments, with pianos still at the forefront, selling, as well as maintaining and tuning.Īt the moment seven brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles work in the business and they enjoy what they do. Hugo fathered a dynasty dedicated to the music business. His family grew up with music all around them, all played piano, so it wasn't surprising when his son Brian opened up Henderson's Pianos in Derry in the late 60s alongside Brendan, tuner and technician. Brendan told me how proud the family is of David's achievements and then we talked about the family itself going back to Hugo Henderson, a native of Co Donegal and a renowned piano tuner in the early 1930s, journeying throughout Ireland working on every instrument from grand pianos to well-played family uprights. On the line, his uncle Brendan "repair man and Jack of all trades" and I had a great chat. The cup is awarded to young piano tuner-technicians who are at a higher level than their peers and are exceptional in this highly skilled profession. I PHONED Henderson Music in Derry to speak to David, a remarkable young man who is co-winner of the Bluthner Cup together with his great friend Julian Dendy – the first time this prestigious award had been won jointly since its creation in 1985 by Whelpdale, Maxwell & Codd, world famed importers of Bluthner Pianos in Leipzig.
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