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Posted by: Cait Miller
American composer, teacher, publisher, and piano manufacturer William Batchelder Bradbury kept an album of musical autographs with signatures from Louis and Marianne Spohr, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Joseph Joachim, Robert and Clara Schumann, Ignaz Moscheles, and more. Learn more about the autographs and view the digitized album on the Library of Congress website.
Posted in: Composers, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Ben West, a writer, director, producer, performer, and musical theatre historian. His current stage project is The Show Time! Trilogy, three new documentary musicals charting the evolution and cultural impact of the American musical: Show Time! The First 100 Years of the American Musical, 45 Minutes from Coontown, …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Musical Theater, Women in Music, Women in Theater
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Senior Music Specialist Susan Clermont. When she was 40 years of age, Venetian virtuoso singer and gifted composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) published her seventh book of musical compositions titled Diporti di Euterpe (The Pleasures of Euterpe) in 1659. Only two complete copies of this imprint are extant today – …
Posted in: Composers, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
One year ago, I published a blog post declaring my excitement about a one-year countdown to Clara Schumann’s 200th birthday and highlighted Schumann’s manuscript cadenzas from the Library’s Whittall Foundation Collection, material that is digitized and available online. Now, finally, Clara’s big day has arrived! 200 years ago, in Leipzig, Germany, Marianne Tromlitz gave birth …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Concerts and Events, Musicians, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Lara Szypszak, Reference Librarian in the Manuscript Division. Mary Hallock Greenewalt (1871-1950) was a musician, inventor, businesswoman, and all around go-getter, whose work leaves traces throughout several divisions of the Library of Congress, most prominently in the Manuscript and Music Divisions. Greenewalt was born in Bhamdoun, a small …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Senior Music Cataloging Specialist Laura Yust. Laura’s post marks the final blog post in our Women’s History Month series that highlights selections from the Music Division’s digital collection Woman’s Suffrage in Sheet Music. The suffragists of the early 20th century faced organized opposition from the anti-suffragists, both men …
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Sheet Music, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
As promised, every Wednesday this month In the Muse is featuring a blog post that highlights stories and names that lie within the Music Division’s recently-launched digital collection, Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music. Last week, I located a newspaper article that contextualized Fanny Connable Lancaster and Florence Livingston Lent’s “Suffrage Marching Song” and described its …
Posted in: Composers, Digital Collections, Sheet Music, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The Music Division’s latest digital collection, Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music, includes over 200 pieces of music related to women’s emerging voices in the 19th century and more directly to the women’s suffrage movement. The collection provides multiple lenses through which a researcher can process the political struggle of the time, including music specifically written …
Posted in: Digital Collections, Sheet Music, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Music Reference Specialist Sam Perryman. Some people know that the Music Division is home to the National Negro Opera Company Collection. They also know that, while it’s not the first African American opera company, it was one of the largest. It was founded and managed by Mary Lucinda …
Posted in: African American History, Guest bloggers, Musicians, Special Collections, Women in Music