It wasn’t your typical mid-day lecture on Capitol Hill. This week the Copyright Office sponsored a special presentation in the Coolidge Auditorium, “Copyright and the American Songwriter.” Copyright regulations have helped many songwriters make a living by their craft, and one songwriter in particular graced the Coolidge stage to humbly represent his fellow songwriters: ASCAP …
Tomorrow, August 25, marks American composer, conductor, and educator Leonard Bernstein’s birthday (he would be 94 years old!). Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was without a doubt one of the most significant and influential musical figures in American history. The Music Division is incredibly fortunate to hold the Leonard Bernstein Collection. One of the most heavily used …
Today we’re excited about the opening of a new exhibit in the Performing Arts Reading Room’s foyer, this one dedicated to the music and legacy of composer Victor Herbert (1859-1924). Herbert was born in Ireland but developed his reputation as a world-class cellist in Germany and later immigrated to the United States in 1886 with …
On Monday we lost a remarkable composer, conductor and entertainer with the passing of Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012). Hamlisch’s legacy is documented in various aspects of the Library’s collections, from sound recordings, to movie footage, to printed music. We hold, among many other items, the published score to his Academy Award-winning film score for The Sting …
The intelligent universe has been fascinated with the images coming from Tuesday’s landing of Curiosity, the new Mars rover. Man’s fascination with celestial objects is as old as civilization itself, and 20th century musical ruminations on the planets range from Holst’s 1916 orchestral suite The Planets to jazz iconoclast Sun Ra’s “Interplanetary Music” on the …
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “lallapaloosa” as “something outstandingly good of its kind.” The term has its origins in American slang from the turn of the 20th century, but its most popular spelling variation is associated with a music festival of more recent vintage. Music fans converge on Chicago this weekend for the 2012 Lollapalooza. …
The following is a guest post from Music Archivist Chris Hartten. Peggy Clark (1915-1996) lit up the Broadway stage in ways very different from most stars of 20th-century America. Following her 1938 Broadway debut as a costume designer for The Girl from Wyoming, Clark soon established herself as a pioneer of stage lighting and one …
Caped crusaders are not the only ones who don masks as a career choice. A recent show and tell in the Music Division curated by the Music Division’s Elizabeth Aldrich, with Dance Heritage Fellows Nicole Topich and Kirsten Wilkinson, showcased items from special collections in dance. This mask was used by Armgard von Bardeleben (1940-2012) in …
I recently toured the Archives of American Art’s new exhibit, “Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon. ” The exhibit riffs on the idea of ”six degrees of separation” popularly associated with actor Kevin Bacon, and uses as its central figure New York artist Peggy Bacon, who is little remembered today but was a well-connected member of …
(photo by Tom Marcello) Chuck Wayne [Charles Jagelka 1923-1997] was a guitarist and teacher who helped bridge the swing era with the modernist bebop revolution of the mid-1940s. Wayne worked along 52nd Street and took part in recording sessions with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Barney Bigard and many others. He was a member …