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Category: Special Collections

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The Andre Kostelanetz Sound – Now Online

Posted by: Cait Miller

Andre Kostelanetz was a conductor, arranger, and pianist known for juxtaposing popular and classical repertoire in radio broadcasts and concert performances with some of the world's leading orchestras. The newest digital collection from the Library of Congress Music Division, the "Andre Kostelanetz Collection," presents the Kostelanetz sound through a selection of correspondence, photographs, scores, diary entries, sound recordings, and moving image material.

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Imagining the U.S. Immigrant Musical Theater

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Dr. John Koegel, Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton. Dr. Koegel will be presenting the Fall 2019 American Musicological Society/Library of Congress Lecture, “Recovering the History of the U.S. Immigrant Musical Theater at the Library of Congress” tonight (November 12, 2019) at 7pm in the Montpelier …

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Finding Strayhorn: Reflections from Chris Potter

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from saxophonist Chris Potter, who participated in the Music Division’s Finding Strayhorn discussion panel on June 12, 2019. My visit to the Library of Congress fortunately coincided with the announcement that the Billy Strayhorn Music Manuscripts and Estate Papers are now available for the public to study. I was …

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A Sweet “Bitter-Sweet” Find in an Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvanian Music Manuscript

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Dr. Christopher Dylan Herbert. Dr. Herbert is a baritone and musicologist. He is an assistant professor of music at William Paterson University and is a member of the Grammy-nominated quartet New York Polyphony. An extended version of this blog will be published as an article in volume 76, …

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Mary Hallock Greenewalt: Rembrandt of the Piano

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Lara Szypszak, Reference Librarian in the Manuscript Division. Mary Hallock Greenewalt (1871-1950) was a musician, inventor, businesswoman, and all around go-getter, whose work leaves traces throughout several divisions of the Library of Congress, most prominently in the Manuscript and Music Divisions. Greenewalt was born in Bhamdoun, a small …

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Polarizing Political Issues: The Anti-Suffrage Rose

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post from Senior Music Cataloging Specialist Laura Yust. Laura’s post marks the final blog post in our Women’s History Month series that highlights selections from the Music Division’s digital collection Woman’s Suffrage in Sheet Music. The suffragists of the early 20th century faced organized opposition from the anti-suffragists, both men …

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Suffrage Music on Parade: Part Two

Posted by: Cait Miller

As promised, every Wednesday this month In the Muse is featuring a blog post that highlights stories and names that lie within the Music Division’s recently-launched digital collection, Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music. Last week, I located a newspaper article that contextualized Fanny Connable Lancaster and Florence Livingston Lent’s “Suffrage Marching Song” and described its …