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Archive: April 2011 (14 Posts)

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Pic of the Week: An Evening with David Amram

Posted by: Larry Appelbaum

I first met composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram 25 years ago when we did a late night radio interview at WPFW-FM. I knew about his music, of course, his film scores (The Manchurian Candidate, Splendor In The Grass, Pull My Daisy) and collaborations with leading jazz, classical, folk and world music artists. But that free-wheeling …

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Good as Gould

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Music Archivist Chris Hartten. Morton Gould delighted American audiences for over seventy years with his impressive array of original symphonic compositions and arrangements. Born in New York in 1913, Gould quickly established himself as a tour de force on the radio and was recognized as one of the …

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Distinctly America! George Crumb at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Producer in the Concert Office Anne McLean. A new music mini-series, Distinctly America!, brings a fascinating sampling of American composers–established and emerging–to the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium this spring (for a complete lineup of events, visit the Concerts from the Library of Congress website).  George Crumb, Sebastian Currier …

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Jazz in the Spring: David Amram

Posted by: Pat Padua

The following post is by Larry Appelbaum, Senior Reference Specialist, Music Division. For the final night of the Library’s Jazz Film Series, we celebrate composer David Amram, who at age 80 continues to break ground in jazz, classical and world music. As a jazz French horn player, Amram worked with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy …

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Pic of the Week: Graham by Moselsio

Posted by: Pat Padua

This week’s featured picture is from the Herta Moselsio Collection, a remarkable  body of work that can be found in our Martha Graham presentation. In 1939, film maker Moselsio worked with  Martha Graham to film her work Lamentation, which premiered in New York in 1930. This iconic work of Graham places the solo dancer on …

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Sheet Music of the Week: Obsessive-Compulsive Edition

Posted by: Pat Padua

This week’s featured title comes from Henri Dora. “Puzzle March” is illustrated with the image of a refined gentleman hard at work on a puzzle whose solution would seem simple enough: to put the numbers one through fifteen in order. Our distinguished fop is nonetheless frustrated, frazzled, and finally driven mad by his inability to …

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Sheet Music and Pic of the Week: Happy Birthday Bessie Smith!

Posted by: Pat Padua

Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith was born on this day in 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Portions of this blog post were taken from the online exhibit, American Treasures of the Library of Congress. Bessie Smith gained immediate success in 1923 with her first recording “Down Hearted Blues”/”Gulf Coast Blues.” Her renditions of Negro life in …

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Five (and a half) Questions: Loras Schissel, Acquisitions Specialist

Posted by: Pat Padua

In the Muse chatted recently with Senior Acquisitions Specialist Loras Schissel. What are you working on right now? I’m putting the final touches on the personal correspondence for the American composer David Diamond, which is neat  because it’s not only David corresponding with other musicians and other New York type people, but he was real …