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Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
This is a guest post by Carl Fleischhauer, program officer with the Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program In 1975, Alan Jabbour and I began a project to document the fiddle playing of Senator Robert C. Byrd, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 92. Sen. Byrd was aware that …
Posted in: American Folklife Center, Capitol Hill, Congress, Music, Washington DC
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
The Librarian of Congress today named 25 new entries to the National Recording Registry, a designation given to recordings that are culturally, historically or aesthetically significant and at least 10 years old. This year’s entries bring the total to 300 and include recordings made famous by a range of artists from Tupac Shakur, Little Richard …
Posted in: American Folklife Center, Audiovisual, Film, History, Music, Uncategorized
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
One of the complaints heard from non-fans of classical music is that so much of it reaches back centuries. As one wag, who preferred jazz, put it: “Mozart hasn’t written anything decent in 200 years!” And yet classical, as a genre, continues to unfold even in our lifetimes. Which means there may be among us the …
Posted in: Books, Concerts, Events, Music, Thomas Jefferson Building, Uncategorized, Washington DC
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
A bunch of ninth-grade girls got in touch with their favorite radio station, making a song request for a tune by one of their favorite artists. But they couldn’t resist the chance to raise that universal complaint: “Why, why, why, why do you always repeat the same songs?” It could have been from the suburbs …
Posted in: Collections, Congress, Curators, Exhibitions, Music, Poetry, Social Media
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
A cartoon can be engaging and funny and tell a story without any audible sound at all; even newspaper cartoons of the 20th century featured characters such as Ferd’nand and The Little King, (external links) who went through their paces, frame-by-frame, with little or no dialogue to move the story along. But sometimes, more is more, as …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Exhibitions, Film, Music, Uncategorized
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
Friday evening at the Library of Congress, our ongoing “Music and the Brain” lecture series will tackle a truly fascinating phenomenon: people whose senses sometimes cross-stimulate, causing them to “hear a color” or “taste a shape.” This phenomenon, known as synesthesia, has been identified in a surprisingly large number of people over the years, including …
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
‘Tis the season to be frightened, and the Performing Arts Encyclopedia is full of ghastly tunes for the musical goblins in your life. We start with Jean Schwartz and William Jerome’s “The Ghost that Never Walked.” The team, best-known for the song “Chinatown my Chinatown,” put this 1904 number into the show “Piff! Paff! Pouf!” to tell the …
Posted in: Collections, Music
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
East may be East, and West may be West – but music is universal, and if the music is jazz, it’s even open all night! On Wednesday, Sept. 30 from noon to 1 p.m., Larry Appelbaum, the Library of Congress’ jazz music specialist, will co-anchor “A Russian-American Jazz Summit – Conversations on the American Influence …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Music, Washington DC
Posted by: Jennifer Gavin
What is dance? Is it storytelling, using human forms to advance the storyline? Is it movement with music? Is it movement alone? Merce Cunningham, a giant of modern dance, asked these questions and answered them–affirmatively in each case–over seven decades. He died, at age 90, on Sunday in Manhattan. From his introduction to the avant-garde composer …