Same old songs on your iPod? Couldn’t get tickets for Lady Gaga? The Music Division has the solution for you. Tickets are now available for the first concerts in the 2010-2011 season at the Coolidge Auditorium. All concerts are free but require tickets available from Ticketmaster. Click on the artist’s name below to reserve tickets. …
My colleague on the Library of Congress blog just waxed eloquent on the storied history of the Coolidge Auditorium. I’ve seen some great shows on that hallowed stage; although I’ve gravitated to the jazz shows, like Cecil Taylor and James Carter, The Mingus Big Band and John Zorn’s Masada, I’ve also spent memorable evenings there …
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 …
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 …
Followers of In the Muse will be pleased to know that a number of Music Division events covered in these virtual pages are now available on the Library of Congress’s Webcasts page. A Conversation with Dafnis Prieto and Larry Appelbaum A performance by the Dafnis Prieto Si O Si Quartet. Music and the Brain: Stage …
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 …
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 …