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Posted by: Pat Padua
Reference Specialist Larry Appelbaum has helped welcome a diverse array of musical luminaries to the Music Division. Here are just a few. Herbie Hancock, upon receiving his Living Legends award. Dave Brubeck’s 2003 performance in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium can be heard here. Larry recently interviewed Mr. Brubeck and his wife and lyricist Iola Brubeck. …
Posted in: Composers, Concerts and Events, Jazz, Musicians
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Elizabeth Fulford Miller, Library Services, with an h/t to Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center. Scotland’s national “bard” was born on January 25, 1759, and all around the world “Burns suppers” – complete with bagpipes, a special Scottish dish called “haggis,” poetry and song – will be …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Pat Padua
There are but a handful of musicians whose innovations changed the way their instrument is played. Among these is guitarist Django Reinhardt, born January 23rd, 1910. Let us remember his centenary with this photo by William P. Gottlieb (whose birthday is January 28th). Listen to Gottlieb talk about Django and this photo session here.
Posted by: Pat Padua
January 19th was the birthday of country music legend Dolly Parton. The Library awarded Parton Living Legend status in 2004. As a longtime fan, I was privileged to be able to attend the Living Legend concert, and furthered my studies in Dollymania a few years later with a a New Year’s Eve pilgrimage to her …
Posted by: Pat Padua
Now that I have your attention: tonight in the Whittall Pavilion, adjacent to the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library’s Jefferson Building, the Music Division resumes its popular lecture series Music and the Brain . These pre-concert presentations offer lectures, conversations and symposia about the explosion of new research at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and …
Posted in: Podcasts
Posted by: Pat Padua
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. Let us celebrate the man, his dream, and our reality. From the Music Division, sing along to “We shall overcome.” On American Memory, read about The Civil Rights Era. Read more about Dr. King on Today in History.
Posted in: Birthdays, Holidays, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The photographs of William P. Gottlieb (1917-2006 ) are a priceless document of the jazz era in the ’30’s and ’40’s. In the Muse will occasionally highlight selections from this collection. Today we celebrate the birthdays of two legendary jazz drummers. When the Music Division prepared the Gottlieb collection for digitization in the ’90’s, Gottlieb worked …
Posted in: Birthdays, Jazz, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The Music Division was saddened to learn that legendary jazz broadcaster Edward Beach passed awayon Christmas Day. Beach was the host of “Just Jazz,” a radio program which ran in New York City from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. The Library of Congress is home to the Edward Beach Collection, which consists of his broadcast …
Posted in: In Memoriam, Jazz, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Robin Rausch, Senior Music Specialist. In 1922, Swiss-born composer Ernest Bloch’s American experience had soured. He did not wish to become an American citizen after all—he would return to Europe. But a visit to his friend, Music Division chief Carl Engel, changed his mind. It was Bloch’s first trip …
Posted in: Composers