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Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Harry Belafonte, Run-DMC, Yo-Yo Ma Recordings Among Newly Announced Inductees Tony Bennett’s hit single “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”; the Latin beat of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine’s 1987 “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You”; the timeless soundtrack of “The Sound of Music”; Run-DMC’s 1986 crossover hit album “Raising Hell”; and radio …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Music, Preservation
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library of Congress is delighted to report that a composition it co-commissioned won a 2018 Grammy Award: Jennifer Higdon, acclaimed composer of contemporary classical music, accepted the award in Madison Square Garden in New York on January 28 for “Viola Concerto.” The Library co-commissioned the work from Higdon with the Curtis Institute of Music, …
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. In the afterglow of the armistice in 1918 that ended World War I, Europe, and particularly the city of Paris, exhibited a wild exuberance. In mid-January 1919, future civil rights pioneer and American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) officer Charles Hamilton Houston encapsulated …
Posted in: Civil Rights, Exhibitions, Music
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Teachers and filmmakers have long relied on primary sources to make history come alive. Ben West, director, performer and musical theater historian, is also drawn to them—but with a novel purpose. He is using unpublished manuscripts, papers of Broadway authors, copyright records and more to tell the story of the American musical—through a musical. His …
Posted in: Collections, Copyright, Manuscripts, Music, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
“Be-bop is a way of phrasing and accenting. The accent is on the up beat. Instead of OO-bah, it’s oo-BAH. Different chords, too. And lots of flatted 5ths and 9ths. There’s lots more to it. But just now I can’t think of what.” —Dizzy Gillespie, Sept. 10, 1947, Down Beat Dizzy Gillespie—trumpeter, composer, bandleader—made an …
Posted in: Collections, Music, Photos