I met Michael Jackson about a year ago when he first relocated from Los Angeles. I am the owner of a Limited Edition Steinway No.44 of 150 which I had purchased in 2004 at Dallas Steinway Hall. I was so excited for my new piano to be shipped to Denver and was going to get some minor tweaks on it. However, instead, after poor workmanship by another technician, it lost its original tone quality and I was devastated. Since that time, I did not let any piano technician in Denver, touch the innards of my piano.
When I met Michael, I was very impressed by his intimate knowledge of Steinways and could tell that it wasn’t just “talk”. The true proof came after 50 hours of his work on a new set of Steinway hammers; my piano now sounds better than when I purchased it, which, is quite astounding to me. I was so pleased with his work that I called on his expertise to assess the condition of the pianos at the university where I teach, University of Colorado-Denver, as the state of these pianos have been unacceptable for years. Within a week, the Steinway that sounded terrible was our best sounding piano after his 30+ hours of diligent and impeccable work and the practice room pianos won praise from the students and they remain in tune unlike before. Faculty and students have been the happiest they have ever been with the pianos and it has made a huge difference in our overall ability to teach.
Responsive pianos allow students to advance their learning curves. Furthermore, Michael brings great pride and integrity to his work. Although our school cannot afford to pay him for the continual maintenance (tunings every month) of one of our teaching pianos, he is adamant about maintaining it in prime condition regardless. It is certainly not a common trait nowadays to see in someone but quite refreshing to know that good old values have not died.
Michael sincerely loves his work and is very loyal to his customers. I am so thrilled that Denver now has a “first rate” technician and I have no doubt that he has/will be raising the bar of fine piano sound and workmanship one piano at a time. I do feel very fortunate that we have someone of Michael’s caliber in Denver.