Arts

Their creations, often custom-made one-of-a-kind designs, are prized by professional musicians across the country and around the world. Toiling alone or sometimes with a helper or two, they are not getting rich. But theirs is a labor of love that enriches us all.

Harpsichords – Mark Adler

Johann Sebastian Bach and other Baroque masters would feel right at home with the instruments Mark Adler turns out at his workshop, Cembaloworks of Washington, in a Gaithersburg industrial park.

“With minor exceptions, there has been nothing new in the engineering of harpsichords over the past several hundred years,” says Adler, who’s been building the instruments full time since 1990. “We really can’t improve on it.”

After giving way to the piano in the late 1700s, harpsichords made a comeback in the mid-20th century, when American builders began to construct instruments true to 17th- and 18th-century designs. Today, Adler spends much of his time repairing and maintaining harpsichords built 20 to 40 years ago.

Adler learned to love the sound of the harpsichord as a child in Chicago, when his piano teacher allowed him to play one after he completed his piano lesson. He later apprenticed with one of the master builders in Boston and crafted instruments in his spare time.

Over the years, he estimates he has built about 32 instruments, at least 20 of which were large harpsichords. The rest were clavichords, spinets, and virginals—smaller cousins of the harpsichord typically played at home. One harpsichord he built in 1994 has been rented out more than 80 times to individuals and organizations, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Building a harpsichord can take as long as a year and a half, Adler says, partly because he must stop in the middle and ship the whole thing off to another artist. The instruments’ large, exposed soundboards are traditionally decorated with intricate watercolor designs, and only three people in the United States still pursue this specialized art. The rest of his completion time is spent making the action parts, stringing the instrument, and then waiting about six months to see how the sound develops.

“I’m almost 70 years of age, and I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Adler says. “I work alone, because if I trained somebody, where else would he go? To my knowledge, I am the only one making harpsichords in Maryland.”

For more information, visit www.cembaloworks.com.

Celtic Harps – Rick Kemper

A self-described “telecom geek,” Rick Kemper spends his days toiling for an industry association that lobbies for cell-phone companies. Nights and weekends, though, find him in the basement of his Silver Spring home, working magic with wood and wire to create harps prized by Celtic musicians across the country. “To atone for what I do during the day, I build harps,” he jokes. “My mother says it’s the only way I’m getting into heaven.”

At his Sligo Harp Shop, Kemper specializes in smaller, lighter “lever harps”—so called because the harpist flips levers to change the pitch—favored by traditional Scottish and Irish musicians. While a full-scale concert harp can exceed 100 pounds and cost $100,000, a popular model that Kemper makes weighs only 18 pounds, “fits in the back of a Toyota Corolla,” and can be had for less than $3,000.

Kemper became fascinated with the smaller folk harps after hearing them at Scottish Highland Games and, with considerable experience fabricating furniture, canoes, and kayaks, decided to try his hand at building them. Now, seven years and some 60 harps later, he has a six-month waiting list. In a year, he builds a dozen complete harps, turns out 20 to 30 shells for other builders, and repairs another six or seven that have seen better days.