Lemont, PA 16851
(814) 883-7799
damaple@comcast.net
I began building harpsichords and clavichords for my own enjoyment shortly after graduation from college in 1975, while employed as a biochemical research technician. My growing fascination with the instruments and their music led me to return to graduate school, culminating in the receipt of a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Chicago in 1988. During my academic years I continued to produce instruments for my own use, and I also carried out extensive work in the maintenance and repair of instruments by other modern makers. This opportunity to examine instruments by a variety of makers taught me a lot about the elements that go into a good instrument, as well as seeing first hand a number of construction practices that usually result in unhappy consequences.
It was also during this academic period that I began an association with the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An initial summer internship was followed by a one-year post-graduate fellowship, which allowed me to study the surviving 16th-century Flemish virginals. In subsequent years I have frequently returned to the museum to examine various instruments from their large collection of harpsichords and clavichords. This opportunity to study the work of makers of the past has had a tremendous influence on my own work.