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Archive: July 2012 (5 Posts)

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Music to Win Gold Medals By

Posted by: Pat Padua

The image of a gentleman with a powdered wig is a far cry from that of today’s young Olympians destined for cereal boxes and  lucrative endorsement contracts. But Italian poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782) penned the libretto for a frequently adapted but little remembered opera set in the ancient Olympic games. L’Olimpiade, with a …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Clark Lights Up the Library

Posted by: Pat Padua

The following is a guest post from Music Archivist Chris Hartten. Peggy Clark (1915-1996) lit up the Broadway stage in ways very different from most stars of 20th-century America. Following her 1938 Broadway debut as a costume designer for The Girl from Wyoming, Clark soon established herself as a pioneer of stage lighting and one …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Pics of the Week: Behind the Mask Edition

Posted by: Pat Padua

Caped crusaders are not the only ones who don masks as a career choice. A recent show and tell in the Music Division curated by the Music Division’s Elizabeth Aldrich, with Dance Heritage Fellows Nicole Topich and Kirsten Wilkinson, showcased items from special collections in dance.  This mask was used by Armgard von Bardeleben (1940-2012) in …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Six Degrees of Ernst Bacon

Posted by: Pat Padua

I recently toured the Archives of American Art’s new exhibit, “Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon. ” The exhibit riffs on the idea of  “six degrees of separation”  popularly associated with actor Kevin Bacon, and uses as its central figure New York artist Peggy Bacon, who is little remembered today but was a well-connected member of …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Chuck Wayne, Sonny & Solar

Posted by: Larry Appelbaum

(photo by Tom Marcello) Chuck Wayne [Charles Jagelka 1923-1997] was a guitarist and teacher who helped bridge the swing era with the modernist bebop revolution of the mid-1940s. Wayne worked along 52nd Street and took part in recording sessions with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Barney Bigard and many others. He was a member …