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Archive: 2014 (17 Posts)

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Effusive About Ephemera

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Music Reference Specialist Robin Rausch.   The Music Division assembles special displays fairly often for visiting dignitaries.  But rarely do we get a chance to bring out the Beech-Nut gum wrapper autographed by composer George Gershwin, or the sales receipts for liquor sold to comedian Danny Kaye …

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Copland as Good Neighbor: Cultural Diplomacy in Latin America During World War II

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Dr. Carol Hess, Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Hess will be presenting on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 as a part of the Library of Congress/American Musicological Society Lecture Series. See the flyer or follow the link for more information.   Scholars and the …

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American Ballet Theatre Exhibit: High Noon Lecture and Gallery Talk

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Victoria Phillips, Lecturer in History, Department of History and the Donald and Vera Blinken European Institute, Columbia University in the City of New York. Victoria Phillips will give two presentations about the Music Division’s current exhibit, American Ballet Theatre: Touring the Globe for 75 years, consisting of a …

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Printing “The Star-Spangled Banner”

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Music Specialist Ray White. “The dawn’s early light” on September 14, 2014, marked the 200th anniversary of the day that Francis Scott Key saw that “the star-spangled banner” was still waving “o’er” Fort McHenry.  The story of that morning has been told many times in this anniversary …

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AMERICAN BAYREUTH: The 1914 Peterborough Festival

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Music Reference Specialist Robin Rausch. For five days in August in 1914, thousands of people descended on the tiny village of Peterborough, New Hampshire to attend the fifth summer festival of music and drama produced by the Edward MacDowell Memorial Association.  Inaugurated in 1910, these annual festivals …

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New Historic Sheet Music Online: Honoring the First World War Centenary

Posted by: Cait Miller

When the Library of Congress was founded in 1800, the institution could not yet boast an established Music Division; in fact, it would be nearly a century before the Library formally created a Music Division. That decision was not so much a philosophical reflection of music’s importance in our culture but rather a necessary course …

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Sonneck’s Obsession and Putnam’s Pursuit: Commissioning Transcripts of Opera in Full Score

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Music Specialist Susan Clermont. For nearly a millennium composers or their copyists wrote out musical scores and individual instrumental and vocal parts by hand, using a pencil or calligraphy pen, vellum or paper, and a ruler. This practice only recently began to change in the 1990s with …

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Nancy Newman on “Finding New Perspectives on the Germania Musical Society through the American Memory Sheet Music Collection”

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Dr. Nancy Newman, Associate Professor at the University of Albany. Dr. Newman’s lecture is a part of the LC/AMS Lecture Series. Please join us for Dr. Newman’s lecture on Tuesday, April 22 at 12:00 noon in Coolidge Auditorium. The Germania Musical Society was a group of about two …