Speaking at Technology challenges and solutions facing orchestras during and post COVID (Part 2)

Rick Talaske relishes great soundscapes. The engineer-turned-scientist-turned-acoustician routinely explores the world’s great concert halls and theaters. Surveying a hall’s soaring spaces and elegant architectural expressions, his mind translates a room’s geometry, the character of its surfaces, its materials, and spatial dimensions into acoustic possibilities. Analysis, investigation, and reverence converge to plumb the space’s possibilities—to take away whatever secrets and lessons it might reveal. He is cheerily unapologetic about what might be experienced as “obsession with sound.” People don’t hire a world-class acoustician to achieve only fair results. What surprises some people is his passionate and enthusiastic advocacy for both performers and audience members. As an avid lover of live performance, he strives to create spaces that enhance live events.