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Category: Holidays

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Veterans Day

Posted by: Pat Padua

On this Veterans Day, take time to remember those who served our country with songs from Patriotic Melodies in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, including “The Army Goes Rolling Along,” “The Marines’ Hymn” (Happy 235th birthday to the United States Marine Corps!), and ”The U.S. Air Force Song” (which you may know as “Off we go into the wild …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Happy Halloween!

Posted by: Pat Padua

In the Muse recently put out a call to Music Division  staff in search of ghost stories, and while nobody would tell me outright that they felt an unexplained cold spot on the Coolidge Auditorium stage, or that sounds of the Stradivarius would emerge mysteriously from an empty hall, the age and history of this …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Sing Along with the Founding Fathers

Posted by: Pat Padua

It’s not exactly Schoolhouse Rock, but between the barbecue and the fireworks, celebrate the long Independence Day weekend with John E. Wilson’s vocal arrangement of the Declaration of Independence from the Civil War Sheet Music collection. You can also find sheet music and recordings of  “God Bless America,”  “America the Beautiful,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Memorial Day

Posted by: Pat Padua

In the United States, Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday in May. The day was first set aside in 1868  “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Happy Easter

Posted by: Pat Padua

The glorious weather we’re having in Washington gives us much to celebrate in both the secular and spiritual realms. See Easter hymns from the Coptic tradition in Coptic Orthodox Liturgical Chant & Hymnody in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Remember Passover with the Yiddish play,  The mother of the world, or, Children come home in The American …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

With Love from the Music Division to You

Posted by: Pat Padua

If music be the food of love, then the Music Division has enough in the refrigerator to play on for a lifetime and then some. Among the more romantic  pieces in the collection is a self-published work by Dayton C. Miller, whose collection of flutes and other instruments is one of the treasures of the Library. …

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted by: Pat Padua

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929.  Let us celebrate the man, his dream, and our reality. From the Music Division, sing along to “We shall overcome.” On American Memory, read about The Civil Rights Era. Read more about Dr. King on Today in History.