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 …
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 …
The Library of Congress Chorale, which draws staff members from all over the library, recently celebrated the birthdays of sundry composers with a lunchtime concert in the Coolidge Auditorium. This was the last concert for their conductor John Saint Amour, who has admirably served his two-year term and awaits a capable successor to arise from …
The events of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses take place in Dublin on a single day, June 16, 1904. Joyceans the world over celebrate Bloomsday with marathon readings and a pint of Guinness or two. Say yes yes to James Joyce with the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, where you can find manuscripts of Samuel Barber’s “Three Songs,” musical settings …
June 4th was the birthday of Cuban-born composer and reed player Paquito D’Rivera. His clarinet and saxophone work has graced a diverse range of ensembles, from the incendiary Cuban-jazz group Irakere to the National Symphony Orchestra. A performance of “Merengue” by cellist Yo-Yo Ma won D’Rivera a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental in 2004. Other …
Last December I began this blog with the announcement that Sir Paul McCartney would be the recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music. I chatted with four Library of Congress staff members who experienced Beatlemania in person. From the stands at the Beatles’ rehearsal for the Ed Sullivan show, to the screams that could be …
Tomorrow evening, the Montreal group Ensemble Caprice will bring Bach and the Bohemian Gypsies to the Coolidge Auditorium, in a featured concert at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Musical Instrument Society. This program will illustrate the influence of anonymous gypsy virtuosi on the works of two great Baroque composers. The Caprice musicians and …
Last week we celebrated birthdays of a diverse array of musical luminaries. Pianist Wladziu Valentino was briefly known as Walter Busterkeys before using the name by which we all know him: Liberace was born May 16, 1919. Read about him in the Nevada section of the Local Legacies project in The American Folklife Center. Alexander Warrack’s Scots Dictionary …
The jazz world has lost one of its great pianists, Hank Jones, who died yesterday in New York. He was 91. During his long and storied career Jones appeared on countless sessions with legends from all walks of jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Jazz writer Howard Mandel …