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Archive: 2015 (52 Posts)

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New Year, New BARD Titles

Posted by: Katie Rodda

I hope everyone out there had a relaxing and peace-filled holiday season. Now that the year is almost through, it’s time to look ahead to 2016 and the new beginnings that await us there. In keeping with that spirit, this blog will highlight some of the newest braille and digital talking books that have been …

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The Spirit of Music

Posted by: Mary Dell Jenkins

I usually attend a number of concerts and events during the holiday season, and this year is no exception. However, this season, I’ve noticed how enduring some of these classic tunes are and wondered what circumstance brought them to us. Many of us are familiar with the miracle of Silent Night being performed on Christmas …

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Ludwig van Beethoven

Posted by: Amanda Smith

Ludwig van Beethoven was a prolific and music-history-altering composer. Today we celebrate his life on the anniversary of his baptism, which is the closest date we have to knowing his actual birth day. I can remember, as a young pianist, that Beethoven’s Für Elise was the first “real” piece I learned to play outside of …

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Give the Gift of Music

Posted by: John Hanson

This following is a guest blog by Donna Koh, music reader services librarian in the Music Section.   It’s still early in December, still time to think about holiday gifts. The Music Section has a great holiday gift idea that will surely pull some heartstrings. First, let me share a personal testimony that may convince …

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Happy Birthday Nino Rota

Posted by: Katie Rodda

Although motion pictures are, for all intents and purposes, a visual art form, one can still appreciate the music from those films on their own without the movie-going experience. For this I am grateful, as, being more drawn to music than film (and having limited spare time to catch all the movies that I’d like …

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The Music Section Goes To Kansas City

Posted by: Amanda Smith

The Music Section was on the move this past week, when I flew across the country to manage an exhibit booth at the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri. I expected the city to be abuzz with baseball themed billboards and memorabilia because, the week before my trip, the Kansas …

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B is really for banjo

Posted by: John Hanson

There are a lot of B’s in the Music Section. Bach, Bax, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Barber, Bartok, and Bernstein, not to mention the very note B –in every octave. We can’t forget Beer, Berger and Belcher, or Badarzewska-Baranowska. Instrumentally, we have the bass guitar, string bass, bass drum, the bari and the bamboula. The bongo …