On Thursday, September 28, 2005, will be the grand opening of a new
museum of automatic music in Israel.  Mr. Nisan Cohen, of Netanya,
Israel, has been collecting musical boxes and automatic musical
instruments for most of his life.  By profession a film maker, Nisan
immigrated to Israel around twelve years ago.

Since I met him, around three years ago, he has been working tirelessly
with a dream of sharing his passion with an uninitiated public -- to
open a museum of automatic music with a concert program, exhibitions of
musical boxes and other instruments, and a special program for children
-- hoping to build interest in this area.

Far from the war-torn terrorist society that one may see on CNN,
Israel is a highly intelligent and cultured society, yet it has never
seen the likes of automatic music for the most part.  The typical
answer that I get when I talk of my pianos, for example, is, "Oh yeah,
I saw one of those in a movie once."  Yet when I demonstrated my
musical boxes for those that I work with, I had many questions and
an extremely high level of interest.

Nisan has in his collection for display hundreds of manivelles,
around fifteen disc-playing musical boxes, several cylinder musical
boxes, a Mason & Hamlin T-100 Welte upright (and he is currently
working on restoring his Chickering Ampico), a barrel-operated table
piano, a coin-operated barrel piano and a street organ complete with
a mechanical monkey.  His latest addition, yet to be delivered, is
a restored Aeolian XY Orchestrelle.

The museum grand opening will be on Thursday, Sept 28.  Hours are
9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, open every day except Sundays.

Building public awareness and interest may be an uphill battle, but
it's my belief that it is our best hope to build for the future.

Warm regards,
Eliyahu Shahar
Ramat Gan, Israel