During his recent trip to Israel, Chris Brooks of the NY office had the pleasure of presenting a lecture at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance for Avi Bar-Eitan, who teaches computer music at the Academy. Chris talked about “What Musicians Should Know about Acoustics”. The class was very responsive and asked lots of questions---leaving his PowerPoint presentation totally in the dust.

The search for words provided him some levity. For instance, no one knew what “gypsum board” was, but one very sharp student figured out that you could use the word “sheetrock.” They remained there for two hours to answer questions, followed by discussion. Chris mentioned that the inquisitive students were the high point of his trip.

There is significant amount of construction currently going on in Israel. The joke goes that the national bird of Israel is the crane—seen over every cityscape. The people Chris met in Israel were amazingly friendly and generous—often going way out of their way to be helpful and informative. Israel is tiny country (10 miles wide at the narrowest point; a 5 hour drive from top to bottom), drenched in history, with a robust economy and vibrant, extraordinarily diverse culture.