Fun With Acousticians

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an open house celebration/20^th anniversary for the Talaske acoustician firm. Along with many fine projects, Talaske is the firm responsible for the Grant Park’s Jay Pritzker Music Pavilion and ground-breaking sound reinforcement system. The crew at Talaske (along with building co-owners, The Sachem Company) threw a great party. It was fun touring the historically significant renovated building and cutting-edge acoustic testing facilities, not to mention chatting up the entire Talaske team. 

Among the growing number of subsets in this business, I have to say that acousticians are a fun bunch of people. There’s always something to learn from an acoustician but don’t think they are a stereotypical bunch of stoic engineers. I have fond (albeit slightly fuzzy) memories of staying up far too late at June’s NPAC convention with the crew from Akustiks, the firm which designed the Schermerhorn Symphony Center acoustics. As orchestra managers, it is in your best interest to get to know as many acousticians as possible and learn from them. Concert hall projects should always be tucked away in the back of a manager’s mind and one of the greatest challenges in those processes is educating board members and donors about the value of hiring the right acousticians for the project. Consequently, the more you learn from first-hand sources before the project begins the better equipped you’ll be to successfully carry out that task.