Personal Life and Early Training
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Brombaugh (related to the Brumbaugh families) has degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati (EE, 1960) and Cornell University (MS-EE, 1963) specializing in the field of acoustics, in particular musical acoustics.
As a lifelong lover of classical music, especially as he heard ancient European organs on recordings - e.g. E. Power Biggs' The Art of the Organ and Helmut Walcha's of J.S. Bach's music on the Schnitger organ in Cappel, he became an apprentice under the two leading American tracker action pipe organ builders, Fritz Noack (1964–1966) and Charles Fisk (1966–1967) and then served as a journeyman (Geselle) with the Rudolph von Beckerath firm in Hamburg in 1967–68 to complete his training, especially in making reed pipes. While in Hamburg, Brombaugh used every opportunity to study the many historic organs in northwest Germany and adjacent Netherlands.
In June 1968, he established his own firm, John Brombaugh & Co., in the farmlands west of Germantown, Ohio, his hometown; this sole proprietorship eventually became a partnership including George Taylor, John Boody, Herman Greunke and others. In 1977, the partnership dissolved in a friendly way when Brombaugh moved his firm to Eugene, Oregon under the new name, John Brombaugh & Associates, Inc. that continued until completing its final instrument in summer 2005. He built 66 organs that are located in 23 states, Canada, Sweden and Japan and was a teacher to many upcoming younger builders, e.g. Bruce Shull, Michael Bigelow, Charles Ruggles, Paul Fritts, Munetaka Yokota, Bruce Fowkes, Trent Buhr, Karl Nelson, David Petty, Aaron Reichert. A grant from the Ford Foundation in Spring 1971 enabled Brombaugh to do intense study of about 100 historic organs in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy and he has continued his studies all possible times since.
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