RIP John Leimseider

Update: "A memorial and celebration of life will be held at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, this Sunday, September 30 at 5:00 pm in Studio Bell’s Performance Hall (850 4 Street SE).

More info can be found here.

Pictured: John Leimseider on the right with Malcom Cecil from this recent post on the upcoming event, TONTO Week.

It has come to my attention that John Leimseider has passed away. John was the head synth technician at the National Music Centre in Calgary, Canada, and previously the Cantos Music Foundation. He was recently scheduled to give a presentation on TONTO with Malcom Cecil on Nov 17 as part of TONTO Week. Please note, that talk is still scheduled to go on with Malcom Cecil. According to NMC, "TONTO was one of the last major projects of JL’s, so this event has much more significance now that he’s gone. But there will be an enormous void without him."

John Leimseider's influence spread far beyond the museum. Many of you visiting MATRIXSYNTH likely know him. I unfortunately never had the opportunity to meet him in person, however I remember seeing him engage on both the Rhodes Chroma and Yamaha CS80 lists. I still have some of those threads. I was hoping to one day make it out to the National Music Centre and meet him in person.

Below is a short playlist featuring John including his work at the NMC, an introductory video on the Roland System-8 from Roland, a video for The Moog Legacy featuring John, and a fun video featuring Neil Diamond's band paying a visit to the NMC, invited by none other than John Leimseider. He will be sorely missed by the synth community.



Playlist:
National Music Center Mini Doc [be sure to listen in stereo - you can only hear John on the left channel to start]
First Impressions of the Roland SYSTEM-8 with John Leimseider
Virtuality: The Moog Legacy, by Amin Bhatia [John Leimseider comes in at 1:58]
Quarter Note Video Tweet: Neil Diamond's band visits the NMC collection [keep an eye out for John]

You can find a handful of posts mentioning John Leimseider in the archives here. He worked on quite a few synths sold by individuals over the years. It's neat to think each one of those synths were touched by him at some point, and the work he did on them will live on.