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Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Senior Music Specialist Ray White. Composer George Gershwin was born 120 years ago, on September 26, 1898. For most of his adult life, he was a youthful celebrity, indeed a rock star of his time, and his mystique is only enhanced by his tragic death from a brain …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Guest bloggers, Special Collections
Posted by: Melissa Wertheimer
Happy 100th birthday to Henryk Szeryng (22 September 1918 - 3 March 1988), a man of international renown as a violinist, pedagogue, cultural ambassador, and humanitarian. The Music Division holds the Henryk Szeryng collection.
Posted in: Birthdays, Jewish American History, Special Collections
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Robin Rausch, Head of Reader Services in the Music Division. For three days in September, in 1918, the musical elite gathered in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for what was billed as the first chamber music festival ever given in America. It took place September 16-18, two months before the November …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Musicians, Special Collections, World War I
Posted by: Cait Miller
Any other Clara Schumann fanatics out there? I’ve been a personal devotee of Clara the composer ever since I first listened in college to Barbara Bonney and Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recording, Robert & Clara Schumann Lieder. I was a Music major and voice student exploring new repertoire for upcoming recitals; while I already loved Robert Schumann’s …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Creative & Programming Director at Feinstein’s/54 Below and author of The Untold Stories of Broadway book series. She is the producer of the musical Be More Chill and the creator of The Jonathan Larson Project, which will premiere this fall. She is also the historian …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Musical Theater, Special Collections
Posted by: Melissa Wertheimer
The Music Division mourns the immense loss of composer and pianist George Walker. He was closely connected to the Music Division for decades.
Posted in: Composers, Concerts and Events, In Memoriam, Musical Instruments, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Larry Appelbaum
Today marks the 109th birthday of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, the first so-called modernist instrumental stylist in jazz. His playing and hip, creative use of musician’s jargon is admired for breaking from the prevailing saxophone style of Coleman Hawkins. In his classic recordings with Count Basie’s Orchestra, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and others, he demonstrated …
Posted in: Birthdays, Jazz, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
For me, the phrase Merchant-Ivory conjures scenes from sumptuous period films like A Room with a View (1985), Maurice (1987), Howard’s End (1992), or The Remains of the Day (1993). I’ve always found the music for these films to be particularly haunting yet beautiful, as if disclosing the tensions that can exist beneath the veneer …
Posted in: Composers, Film Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
The following is a second guest post from Stephanie Ruozzo, a doctoral candidate in musicology at Case Western Reserve University. As a summer CWRU Fellow in the Music Division, Stephanie organized the additions to the papers already held in the Marge Champion Collection. For this post, Stephanie highlights the variety and extent of documentation of …
Posted in: Dance, Guest bloggers, Special Collections