The following article appeared in the latest copy of an Australian
trade magazine, the Manufacturer's Monthly.  Hopefully Mastertouch will
receive financial and hands-on support to keep the factory operational
for the future.

Colin MacKinnon

 - - -

Assistance needed for historic working factory in Sydney.
BY BRENT WHYTE (Manufacturer's Monthly magazine)

One of the world's last piano roll manufacturing companies, the
Mastertouch Piano Roll Company in Petersham, Sydney, is searching
for assistance to keep this living museum operating.

Mastertouch is an ongoing and productive business and still sells
to a base of more than 9,000 known pianola owners.

However as the experiences of the generation that most loved pianolas
passes from memory to history, present owner Barclay Wright seeks to
preserve for tomorrow's children a small corner of a disappearing
world that, if allowed to die, no book could ever bring back to life.

Wright nurtures a vision of a working museum where people can
experience one of the world's best collections of pianolas.

"I believe that with this computer age, the workplace will change
so dramatically that in 25 years time people will not be able to
comprehend a working factory of the past.  And the concept of Mums
and Dads standing around a pianola singing to the family will become
as quaint as milking your own cow or making your own butter.

"Our idea in offering Mastertouch to the people of Australasia is not
only to preserve an industrial workplace to show future generations
but also to keep alive the significant musical heritage it produced.

"The importance of any such place, of course, is that it must make
something and do something.  It must be alive and entertaining.
It is no use displaying a dead machine and saying 'This used to do
so and so' while people are looking at a rusted wreck.

"This is why Mastertouch is unique, because, through its use of antique
machinery in everyday manufacturing (making both piano rolls and boxes
-- including specialist boxes), history remains a living thing."

As the directors of the support group Music Roll Australia Ltd prepare
for the future, they are reaching out to the community -- for assistance
to preserve this living gem of our history and culture.  Priorities now
are to seek ongoing endowments and volunteers of expertise to expand
the vision of the collections that Wright wants to pass on to the
people of Australia.

For information about how you or your company can assist with the
Mastertouch Living Museum, please contact Roy Coulson at Music Roll
Australia on 029743 8988.  (+ 612 9743 8988)

 [ At http://www.pianorolls.com.au/mthist.htm  is an account of the
 [ efforts to associate with other well-established national museums:
 [
 [   Each of these bodies was unable to find a workable solution
 [   to Barclay Wright's request that any museum so created should be
 [   a "working" museum -- that is, that the plant and machinery should
 [   continue to operate and produce piano rolls and boxes while the
 [   public "looked in"!
 [
 [ -- Robbie