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Archive: June 2012 (8 Posts)

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Happy Birthday to Richard Rodgers!

Posted by: Cait Miller

Today we remember Richard Rodgers and his incredible contribution to musical theater and popular song on what would be his 110th birthday! Rodgers (1902-1979) wrote more than 900 songs and composed for 43 musicals and left an immeasurable impact on the American songbook, influencing arts from the worlds of pop, classical, jazz, and beyond. Rodgers’ …

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How to Find Your Snooky Ookums: A Guide to the Irving Berlin Collection

Posted by: Pat Padua

The Music Division regularly offers new and updated online finding aids to help guide the intrepid researcher through its vast collections. You can see an index of all the Music Division’s finding aids here.  This month’s new additions include a guide to the papers of Edward Jablonski, author of Irving Berlin: American Troubadour and other composer biographies, as …

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Pic of the Week: Proud as a Peacock Edition

Posted by: Pat Padua

The following post is by Music Cataloging intern Ruth Bright. While cataloging as an intern in the Music Division, I ran across this beautifully illustrated lithograph title page for a song tucked away inside an anonymous volume, one of approximately 290 volumes found at LC classification number M1.A15.  This volume of miscellaneous melodies contains many …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Sheet Music of the Week: Bunker Hill Edition

Posted by: Cait Miller

Last Sunday, June 17, marked the 237th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, where on a hilltop just outside of Boston over 1000 members of the rebel army put up a valiant fight against two infantry charges by the highly organized (and significantly larger) British forces. Though the Americans were defeated by the third …

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Pic of the Week: Calling all Choreographers Edition

Posted by: Pat Padua

The following is a guest post by Dance Heritage Coalition Fellow Nicole Topich. Processing the Marge Champion Collection in the Music Division has been one of the most exciting archives jobs I have held.  The collection is not very large, but almost every item I found was interesting or historically significant.  Because the collection has …

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Sheet Music of the Week: Now I Lay Me Down to Funk Edition

Posted by: Pat Padua

The children’s prayer that begins,  “Now I lay me down to sleep”  dates back to an 18th century New England primer, but its musical life has followed a surprising path over the more than two centuries since.  From heavy metal (Metallica)  to hip-hop (The Notorious B.I.G.) to indie rock (Liz Phair), the iconic words have …

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Cinema in Concert

Posted by: Pat Padua

The following is a guest post by Senior Music Cataloger Sharon McKinley.  The Library of Congress Chorale’s Spring concert is this Thursday, June 7. Cinema in Concert  will be presented at noon in the JeffersonBuilding, Coolidge Auditorium. It is free to staff and the public, so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by! It’s …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

From Wes Anderson to Benjamin Britten

Posted by: Pat Padua

Seeing a new Wes Anderson movie is like getting a new mix tape. The soundtracks to his films blend original scores  — often by Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh — with pop music that summons an air of fragile nostalgia: Nick Drake, Nico, middle-period Kinks, French yeh-yeh music. Classical music also plays a part in his …