ABSTRACT
Founded in the Boston area, in 1972, by Alvin Foster, with the help of Peter Mitchell, Richard Goldwater, and James Brinton, it is the country’s oldest, still-active audio-hobby club. Initially, it was tied in with the radio program, Shop Talk, on WBUR. The club was influential beyond its often modest membership size (there are members in areas far removed from Boston), and many individuals who later became influential audio journalists, or were (or would become) important in the audio manufacturing business were, and continue to be, members of the BAS. The club publishes a small newsletter, the BAS Speaker, that continues to be read by notables in the audio community. [Website: https://www.bostonaudiosociety.org./]
HOWARD FERSTLER
Established in 1881, one of the oldest and most distinguished American orchestras, and the first to make recordings. The pioneer recording was of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, made in the Victor Camden studios (#6050; 1917); it remained in the Victor catalog into the electrical era until it was replaced by Serge Koussevitzky’s version. Victor held the exclusive contract for the orchestra until 1969, when Deutsche Grammophon acquired it. Later the ensemble was heard on CBS, Philips, and other labels. Among the outstanding recordings by the orchestra were Debussy pieces made under Munch, e.g., La Mer (#LM 2111); and contemporary works commissioned for them under Serge Koussevitzky (by Bartók, Bliss, Britten, Ibert, Milhaud, Ravel, VillaLobos, Walton, and others). A large collection of noncommercial recordings (acetates) of the orchestra is at the Library of Congress (described in Young 1990). In 2000, the Symphony issued a 12-CD set documenting radio broadcasts made from Symphony Hall between 1943-2000.
