Henk van Eeken (*1956) comes from a family of furniture makers.

His grandfather obtained the title of master furniture maker in 1918.

After extensive training as a furniture maker, he was educated as an organ builder in several workshops in the Netherlands. In 1982 Henk van Eeken established his own workshop in Leusden.

In the night of April 11 to 12, 1995, a fire destroyed the workshop in Leusden. After Henk van Eeken took over the shop of organ builder Sebastiaan Blank in March 1996, the business was continued in the large and well equipped workshop in Herwijnen.

The objective of the company is to build organs with an artistic expression comparable to that of the many beautiful historic European organs.

In order to achieve this goal, much research is carried out on historical organs. Since research is the basis of the company, it has a permanent character. Thanks to close collaboration with the University of Göteborg and GOArt, the Göteborg Organ Art Center in Göteborg, Sweden, research has become the scientific basis of the firm.

As a result of this research Henk van Eeken uses the principle of process reconstruction, particularly in the construction of the pipes. This means that the original construction process for each organ-building style is repeated as accurately as possible. Raw materials are used with a chemical composition very close to that of historical pipe metal. Depending on the style, the metal is cast on sand or on cloth, and then planed by hand. A production process that follows the original as accurately as possible offers the best conditions for achieving the sound quality of historical organs.

A freshly cast sheet of organ metal is lifted from the casting bench.

Henk van Eeken is the Dutch partner of ORSEV - The Organ as a Symbol of the European Vision, a project within the cultural program Raphael of the European Commission (DG X). He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca in Mexico, and in 2000 and 2002 he was a member of the jury for the 'Arp Schnitger Preis', a prize which is awarded every two years by the Arp Schnitger Gesellschaft. Henk van Eeken is also working for the research project COLLAPSE - Corrosion Of Lead and Lead-tin Alloys of organ PipeS in Europe - a project within 'The Fifth Framework Programme' of the European Commission.

Henk van Eeken's workshop employs 9 specialists, with a total experience of more than 140 years.

The new organs manufactured since 1982 gave the workshop an international reputation. Several historical organs have been restored and reconstructed, like the Zeemans-Schmidt organ (1699) in the town hall of Etten-Leur and the Radeker/Garrels organ (1719) in the Magnuskerk in Anloo. The workshop is also responsible for the maintenance of more than 100 organs. Amongst them are important organs like the Vater-Müller (1726 -1742) organ in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, the Christian Müller organ (1734) in the Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam and the Jalinck organ (1708) in Westervoort.

Gert Niesing, organ builder since 1960, during maintenance work on the Vater-Müller organ in the Oude Kerk te Amsterdam.