ASB Piano Service
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. -Victor Hugo
Adam Schulte-Bukowinski, Registered Piano Technician
I grew up in a family that placed a high value on the arts, particularly music. Towards the end of my elementary school years I started teaching myself how to play piano by ear. Halfway through high school, my parents realized I was still really committed to it and I started my first official piano lessons at age 15. After high school, I attended the University of Oklahoma, where I graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy.
After nearly a decade of work unrelated to music, I finally listened to the yearning inside to return to music, and enrolled at the acclaimed Chicago School for Piano Technology (CSPT), where I completed the rigorous basic training curriculum in piano technology in the Fall of 2011 and the advanced curriculum, focusing on Advanced Piano Preparation and Institutional Management, in the Fall of 2013. I have operated my own independent piano service business since 2012 and am a Registered Piano Technician and active member of the Piano Technicians Guild, and was president of the Nebraska chapter from 2018 to 2020.
In the Summer of 2013, I was fortunate to be chosen as the Senior Piano Technician Fellow with the Tanglewood Music Center, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There I was immersed in the demanding world of high-end concert service, and quickly discovered that, though it could be a high-pressure environment, I loved being a key contributor in the performance and sharing of beautiful music by some of the most skilled musicians in the world.
In the fall of 2018 I accepted the position of Chief Piano Technician at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where I manage roughly 100 keyboard instruments (mostly pianos, but also several harpsichords and a fortepiano) for the Glenn Korff School of Music, in addition to tuning for concerts at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. I have prepared pianos for some of the most prominent names in the classical music world, including Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Yuja Wang, the St. Louis Symphony, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Barry Douglas, and Gabriela Montero, among others.
I absolutely love what I do. It gives me an immense amount of satisfaction to have a career focused on maximizing the joy other people get out of playing and/or listening to this wonderful instrument, the piano. In a very basic sense, when the job is done well I'm spreading harmony and happiness, and frankly, it doesn't get much better than that.