Boston (February 4, 2010)—On Tuesday, 400 recording fans gathered to witness a recording session done the old-fashioned way: on wax cylinder.
Held in the Rabb Lecture Hall at the Boston Public Library’s Copley Branch, the event was sponsored by The New England Institute of Art in partnership with the Education Committee of the AES.
There, Gerald Fabris, curator of the Edison Historical Site, demonstrated the process of audio recording on a wax cylinder, just the way it was done over 100 years ago. Also on hand were Bruno Caruso (great grand nephew of Enrico) and the Hot Tamale Brass Band.
One of the event’s organizers was John Krivit, an associate professor of Audio & Media Technology at NEIA as well as vice chair of the AES Education Committee. Krivit commented, “It was really entertaining and well attended. Hopefully we've reached out to the good number of High School students who were in attendance. We wanted to make them more aware of the intersection of physical science and audio recording, and I thought that this event would do that. Hopefully we've also made folks more aware of the AES and recruited a bunch of new members.”
Among the evening’s performances was a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which ironically was published originally on the same date 100 years ago (February 2, 1910).