Architectural Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement June 1 – 3 , 2002

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 50, No. 9, 2002 September S t. Petersburg, now only one year away from celebrating its 300th anniversary, has long been considered the crown jewel of Russia. Its many palaces, once the homes of the Czars and other Russian nobility, now serve as some of the greatest museums in the world. The Hermitage, most notable of all, symbolizes the art and culture of Russia, and displayed in the five palaces that make up its galleries are art treasures collected from around the world during more than 1,000 years. St. Petersburg also is known throughout the world for its performing arts: the Mariinskiy Theatre, the Kirov Ballet, the plays of Pushkin, and the music of Tschaikovsky, Borodin, and Moussorgsky to name but a few. Now the Audio Engineering Society has raised its flag in Peter the Great’s “window to the West.” The Russian Sections of the AES in Moscow and St. Petersburg, formed less than a decade ago, have blossomed into very active and productive enclaves of scientists and educators who for decades before had been sequestered due to Cold War constraints, unable to communicate with their colleagues in the West. They have lost no time in catching up, however, and in early June assembled an international panel of experts to present the AES 21st International Conference, Architectural Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement. The conference was based at the centrally located Hotel Moscow. The technical sessions were held in a grand ballroom refurbished especially for the conference. In fact, the conference commenced immediately after the renovations had been completed. As an early introduction to the city, delegates who had arrived by Friday evening were taken on a bus tour of some of St. Petersburg’s most famous sites: the Church on Spilled Blood, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and the Bronze Horseman statue of Peter.