Nearly 16,000 pages of material from the Library of Congress Leonard Bernstein Collection have been transcribed and reviewed via our "By the People" crowdsourced transcription campaign. Transcriptions will ultimately be made available in loc.gov, and the Leonard Bernstein Digital Collection will soon be keyword searchable.
This blog post highlights the work of American composer Ulysses Kay (1917-1995), particularly his “Forever Free: A Lincoln Chronicle” for wind band, commissioned by Broadcast Music Inc. for the Civil War Centennial Commission in 1962.
Home to the George and Ira Gershwin Collection, the Library of Congress celebrates the 100th birthday of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with a special concert and a look at how the Library's collections tell the story of the work's creation and reception.
This is a guest post from Head of Acquisitions & Processing Vin Novara, with Senior Music Specialists Mark Eden Horowitz, Kate Rivers, and Ray White. Nick Hornby’s book “High Fidelity” (1995) features an entertaining look at the quirks of people who intensely collect on music. Top five lists feature prominently throughout the work. As …
There are many instances of established composers writing music under unexpected pen names, and the Music Division's special collections hold manuscripts for several such works. Read more about relevant examples from the Charles Wuorinen Papers and the Fritz Kreisler Collection.
James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is one of the most significant hymns in American history. Read more about the genesis of the song and download sheet music published in 1900 and 1921.
Senior Music Specialist Mark Eden Horowitz reflects on his friendship with Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) and Sondheim's connection to the Library of Congress.
The creators of the new film adaptation of tick, tick...BOOM! researched the Jonathan Larson Papers at the Library of Congress in the early stages of their process. Learn more about Jonathan Larson by seeing notes and sketches related to <tick, tick...BOOM!, and a questionnaire Larson created and filled out about life in 1990.
