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Posted by: Pat Padua
Summer means baseball, and baseball has a long history of superstition, but before you decide to stop bathing after your next no-hitter, remember that the performing arts is far from immune to the allure of old wives’ tales. The most notable superstition in the repertoire may be that of theater professionals who refer to one …
Posted in: Composers, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Susan Clermont, Senior Music Specialist. “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” Robert Schumann Beginning with the 1925-26 inaugural season of the Library of Congress’s annual Festival of Chamber Music, the music of Robert Schumann (1810-1856) has flooded …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Today we remember the July birthdays of two very different musical luminaries represented in the Music Division’s august coffers. Ernest Bloch was born July 24th, 1880. A special performance of his viola suite was given on December 10th, 2009, in the Coolidge Auditorium by violist Roberto Diaz and pianist Andrew Tyson to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
One of the highlights for the Music Division this year was the recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music. But even the lucky few of us who attended the Gershwin Prize concert at the Coolidge Auditorium got only a glimpse of the all-star line-up who would perform at the White House. Wednesday night on …
Posted in: Composers, Concerts and Events, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Composer Roger Reynolds was born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. Ciro G. Scotto, in his 1992 volume Contemporary Composers, wrote that Reynolds “has created a body of work that encompasses nearly every major musical development in the 20th century.” In an article written for the Library of Congress Information Bulletin in 2002, Senior Music Specialist …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Concerts and Events, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The phrase “there’s a sucker born every minute” is commonly attributed to famed showman Phineas Taylor Barnum. The quote’s provenance is disputed, its sentiment cynical, but as adaptable headline fodder it is unsurpassed. If the reader so desires, the remainer of this paragraph may be read out loud in the booming voice of a carnival …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
This post is abridged from a biography written by James Wolf, Digital Conversion Specialist, Music Division, for African-American Band Music & Recordings, 1883-1923 in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Read the entire article here. Robert Allen Cole was born on July 1, 1868, in Athens, Georgia, the son of former slaves. Like Will Marion Cook and James …
Posted in: African American History, Birthdays, Composers, Sheet Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
Thanks to Christopher Hartten and Robin Rausch, Music Division, for contributing to this post. Prolific Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) wrote music in virtually every genre. He began composing as a child and studied composition under Ildebrando Pizzetti. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 1932 meeting with guitarist Andrés Segovia would inspire him to write what would become dozens of …
Posted in: Composers, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Richard Rodgers, one of the great composers of the American Musical Theater, was born on this day in 1902. With Lorenz Hart (lyricist for “Manhattan” and Pal Joey) and Oscar Hammerstein (lyricist for South Pacific, Oklahoma, and The Sound of Music) Rodgers’ music has been part of the musical and cinematic collective consciousness for nearly …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Special Collections