David Jacques Way

He died of a heart attack in his workshop on February 4, 1994.

Way developed a large network of domestic and international Agents who liaised with musicians and distributed the instruments and kits worldwide. In 1983, Stonington took over full-time production of smaller runs of the Zuckermann kits, while continuing to complete the custom-finished instruments signed D. Jacques Way. In the late 1980s he formalised his cross-Atlantic partnership with French harpsichord maker Marc Ducornet, after which many instruments were signed D. Jacques Way & Marc Ducornet.

During the 1970s, Way gradually abandoned the more usual modern materials of plywood, hard steel wire and zither tuning pins. At this time, Stonington was the prototype and custom instrument shop while the Zuckermann kits were mass-produced by a facility in Philadelphia. When William Hyman died unexpectedly in 1976, Way was charged with the posthumous completion of several outstanding orders with the assistance of Hyman's last apprentice John Bennett, who remained in Stonington to preside over a dozen workers as foreman through 1990.

Way came to harpsichord making relatively late in his life. After having built a harpsichord kit by Wolfgang Zuckermann in the late 1960s, Way wrote the "Appendix—By a Harpsichord Kit Builder" for Zuckermann's book The Modern Harpsichord, which was published in 1969 by Way's own company October House Inc. When Zuckermann prepared to leave the United States soon afterwards, Way sensed a career change, purchased Zuckermann Harpsichords Inc and moved its premises from New York City to the historic seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut.

Born in Elk Creek, Nebraska, Way was educated at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in its earliest days, where he gained his lifelong interest in graphic design and typography. His first commercial venture was the establishment in 1938 of Grafix Press in nearby Lake Eden, with fellow Black Mountain College student Emil Willimetz. After leaving the College, he began his working life as a fine-arts printer and publisher. In 1953, he entered partnership with the graphic designer Bertram L. Clarke to form Clarke & Way, consolidating a collaboration which began four years previously with work on the production of the twelve volume catalog of the Frick Collection.

David Jacques Way (1918–1994) was an American harpsichord maker.