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A little about me: My name is William John Story Jurgenson, and I was born on April 18, 1944 in Flint, Michigan. During the 7th grade, I was drawn to the violin, and after a short time the teacher decided I should play bass. Thus, I was introduced into music making. After graduating from Pontiac Central High School and summer sessions at Interlochen, I enrolled at U of M as a composition major under Ross Finney and George Wilson, a Dallapiccola pupil and friend of Luciano Berio. Here, I continued as an "honors student" with bass and also took English. Until recently, I remained active as a professional bass player, specializing in historic tunings and bow techniques. Now, I unfortunately no longer have time to practice. During high school, I became acquainted with John Challis in Detroit and the harpsichord. At U of M, it became clear to me that I wanted to become an instrument maker. I quit school, Jobbed at Sea Ray Boat Co., then in Oxford, Michigan, and at Economy Plumbing and Heating in Skokie, Ill. to earn sufficient money to come to Europe and learn organ building. I have been here ever since. After 18 years as organbuilder, 10 as shop foreman, I started out on my own. At about the same time, I learned violin making from Eberhard Heinemann. This greatly widened my knowledge of working techniques. Restoration questions led me to take a closer look at measurements and local units in 1969. This has developed into a special field for me and to a computer program, "Massanalyse 3.0" for the Macintosh, copyrighted by Jonny Stadler, Heidelberg and myself. At present, I am collaborating with Dr. Stephen Birkett, Waterloo, Ont. exploring projective geometry and units as a basis of construction in historic instruments. Dr. Birkett presented a preliminary version at the 1999 AMIS convention. In the meantime, this has been published in the Galpin Society Journal, Vols. LIV and LV. My hobbies are reading, historic
motorcycles and bicycle racing. I am back in training and ride about 1000km/month. I have 4 children: Miriam,
married, two sons and daughter (making me a grandpa); Katrin, married,
also two daughters and two sons; Kristina, twins , employed in the IT
resourcing branch in London,
and Soeren, a 2 year old daughter , a tool engineer, working for Mann & Hummel. I am definitely still in business (contrary to some reports) and happily have a couple of years backlog...
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