Broadway orchestration is the lasso that ensnares a catchy tune, a witty lyric, a burst of inspired dance–and spins them out from Times Square to your local theater, cabaret, satirical review or high school.
Wednesday and Thursday, May 6 and 7, the Library of Congress’ Music Division will host a free, two-day public symposium on Broadway orchestration in the Coolidge Auditorium, which is on the ground floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building at 10 First Street S.E. in Washington, D.C. The Wednesday sessions will run from 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. and the Thursday sessions from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets are not required.
Panelists will discuss the orchestrations and careers of such Broadway legends as Robert Russell Bennett (”My Fair Lady,” “Oklahoma!”) Robert “Red” Ginzler (”Bye Bye Birdie,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”) Don Walker (”The Pajama Game,” “The Music Man”) Philip Lange (”Annie Get Your Gun,” “Hello Dolly”) and Ralph Burns (”Funny Girl” and “Fosse”). The panels will be led by a dozen top musicians–orchestrators, conductors, composers and musical directors–who have been active on Broadway for more than half a century.
The program is under the auspices of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trust for the benefit of the Library of Congress. It’s in conjunction with the release of “The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations” by Steven Suskin (Oxford University Press, 2009) a book largely researched at the Library.
The Library of Congress Music Division brings all aspects of music to life through its priceless collections and sponsorship of live performances. In February the Library, through its Music Division, awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song to Stevie Wonder, who premiered a new commissioned work at the Coolidge.
The Music Division also is the home of vast collections of music of all kinds–rare manuscripts, sheet music, recordings, and the personal papes of many musicians and composers. In 2008, for example, the Library received the papers of Charles Strouse (who composed the music for “Annie” and “Bye Bye Birdie”).
For more than two years now, I’ve been the lone blogger on LOC.gov. As most bloggers know, the key to nurturing a growing group of engaged readers is mainly a function of volume: lots of compelling posts, posted with regularity.
Unfortunately for the blog, I wear many hats in my current position, which far too often push blogging down the list of priorities. So I’ve decided to get some help, because there are too many interesting stories around here for one person to try to tell.
I’m pleased to announce that Jennifer Gavin, the senior public affairs specialist in my office, has signed on as a co-blogger. Before coming to the Library in 2007, she held a number of jobs in public relations. She has also had a long career as a journalist, writing for several outlets including the Associated Press.
I’m personally a big fan of her writing, her tone, and her sense of humor, and I hope you will be too.
“May Day!” is a well-known distress call. But “MayDay” is also a project to help prevent distress of another kind: Archives, libraries, museums and historic preservation organizations have set aside May 1 to participate in MayDay, an initiative to protect cultural heritage from disasters.
For our part, the Library last year contributed a “mutual assistance” charter for cooperative emergency initiatives.
This year, as part of MayDay disaster preparedness, the Library has developed a poster showing “Level of Collections Emergency Scenarios.” The chart is color-coded to denote the relative risk level of the different scenarios.
So stop and take a moment to think about how our cultural heritage can be better protected. And “May” all of your collections forever be at light-yellow levels.
Well, this is a day that has been a long time in coming. The Library of Congress has been working for several months now so that we could “do YouTube right.” When you’re the stewards of the world’s largest collection of audiovisual materials (some 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings), nothing less would be expected of you, and our own YouTube channel has now gone public.
We are starting with more than 70 videos, arranged in the following playlists: 2008 National Book Festival author presentations, the Books and Beyond author series, Journeys and Crossings (a series of curator discussions), “Westinghouse” industrial films from 1904 (I defy you to watch some of them without thinking of the Carl Stalling song “Powerhouse”), scholar discussions from the John W. Kluge Center, and the earliest movies made by Thomas Edison, including the first moving image ever made (curiously enough, a sneeze by a man named Fred Ott).
But this is just the beginning. We have made a conscious decision that we’re not just going to upload a bunch of videos and then walk away. As with our popular Flickr pilot project, we intend to keep uploading additional content. We’re modifying some of our work-flows in modest ways to make our content more useful and delivered across platforms with built-in audiences of millions.
Not so incidentally, all of the videos we post on YouTube will also be available at LOC.gov (and many, many more, of course) on American Memory, many of which are newly digitized in much higher resolution by the fine Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound conservators in Culpeper, Va.
And now for something completely different: boxing cats!
As I previously wrote (prematurely heralding what turned out to be only highlights of the evening), Wonder premiered the piece “Sketches of a Life,” which was commissioned by the Library. It’s worth watching if only to see Stevie Wonder artfully alternating between three different instruments, surrounded by a chamber orchestra of 21 nattily dressed musicians—something you don’t exactly see every day.
Also included are two roof-raising encores: a “Wonder”ful version of “Overjoyed” and a sing-along of “My Cherie Amour.”
Wonder performed at the Library in celebration of his being awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. A Feb. 25 tribute concert at the White House was broadcast Feb. 26 on PBS.
LOC.gov is the only place where you will be able to view the Feb. 23 concert. (Mad props to Stevie Wonder and to EMI for giving us rights and permissions!)
As I’ve previously stated (or tweeted), I felt a little bit bad that Charles Darwin shared his 200th birthday with Abraham Lincoln.
It’s safe to say that one of the most widely recognized and influential scientists in history was somewhat overshadowed by the celebration of one of America’s greatest presidents.
My colleague Donna Urschel recently covered a lecture on a book about Darwin, shedding new light on the “origin of ‘On the Origin of Species.’”
A number of news outlets have been focusing on a statement by President Obama in support of the automobile industry in his State of the Union Address: “I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.” (One example is here.)
A number of them are citing the Library of Congress as having definitively asserted that the car was actually invented in Germany. As is often the case, the truth is sometimes more elusive than what one might think.
The media’s likely source for this Library of Congress factoid is from our “Everyday Mysteries” site, which presents history in an engaging Q&A format.
While the answer that is given regarding who invented the car is indeed “Karl Benz,” it is more accurate to say that “it depends on how you define an automobile.”
The webpage itself has this disclaimer right beneath the given answer: “This question does not have a straightforward answer.” It also includes this less-than-definitive statement: “If we had to give credit to one inventor, it would probably be Karl Benz from Germany. Many suggest that he created the first true automobile in 1885/1886.” (Emphasis added)
The page points out that self-propelled road vehicles powered by steam or electricity in France and Scotland predated Benz’ invention. It also credits Americans with having invented the first car to combine “an internal combustion engine with a carriage,” along with having set up the first company to manufacture and sell automobiles.
Before you watch the Stevie Wonder concert last night at the White House in celebration of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song tonight on PBS (you will watch, won’t you?), you really need to see the celebrated artist kick it “classical style” in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. (The White House event was also held in honor of African American History Month.)
Wonder and a 21-piece orchestral ensemble performed the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the Library called “Sketches of a Life,” a nine-movement reflection on his lifelong musical and personal influences. The unique piece, a big departure from the Stevie Wonder most of us know and love, has been drawing rave reviews. SEE THE WEBCAST!
The composition, bookended by a pair of standing ovations, was followed by an encore of two more-familiar Stevie Wonder hits. First, he played a goosebump-inducing version of “Overjoyed.” (At least it gave me goosebumps.) Then he led the 450-person audience in a rollicking sing-along of “My Cherie Amour.”
Wonder joins a long list of distinguished composers who have written commissions for the Library, including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Bela Bartók, Paquito D’Rivera and Cecil Taylor. You can learn more about the Library’s vast performing-arts holdings here.
Even if you couldn’t be there in person, I hope the webcast gives you a sense of the excitement in the air for that historic moment. And I hope our servers can handle the traffic that this webcast might (and should) get!
You can also watch a pre-concert news conference in its entirety here.
UPDATE: My apologies, but I had thought the version of the concert we uploaded was much closer to the complete show. There are a couple of tangles we’re still working through. The entire show, or the vast bulk of it, should be online soon.
Even communications directors find themselves caught up in miscommunication now and again.
Are you or any of your DC friends looking to make last-minute plans tonight? How about attending the public opening of “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition” from 5 to 9 p.m. this evening?
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