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Posted by: Pat Padua
Anglophiles on this side of the pond had to get up awfully early this morning to witness the pageantry across the sea. We hope and presume that Prince William did not have this week’s featured sheet music in mind as he awaited his bethrothed. Composer Clarence Gaskill bleakly portrays married life as “no wining and …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Larry Appelbaum
I first met composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram 25 years ago when we did a late night radio interview at WPFW-FM. I knew about his music, of course, his film scores (The Manchurian Candidate, Splendor In The Grass, Pull My Daisy) and collaborations with leading jazz, classical, folk and world music artists. But that free-wheeling …
Posted in: Composers, Film Music, Jazz, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Music Archivist Chris Hartten. Morton Gould delighted American audiences for over seventy years with his impressive array of original symphonic compositions and arrangements. Born in New York in 1913, Gould quickly established himself as a tour de force on the radio and was recognized as one of the …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Special Collections
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Senior Producer in the Concert Office Anne McLean. A new music mini-series, Distinctly America!, brings a fascinating sampling of American composers–established and emerging–to the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium this spring (for a complete lineup of events, visit the Concerts from the Library of Congress website). George Crumb, Sebastian Currier …
Posted in: Composers, Concerts and Events
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following post is by Larry Appelbaum, Senior Reference Specialist, Music Division. For the final night of the Library’s Jazz Film Series, we celebrate composer David Amram, who at age 80 continues to break ground in jazz, classical and world music. As a jazz French horn player, Amram worked with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy …
Posted in: Composers, Film Music, Jazz, Musicians
Posted by: Pat Padua
This week’s featured picture is from the Herta Moselsio Collection, a remarkable body of work that can be found in our Martha Graham presentation. In 1939, film maker Moselsio worked with Martha Graham to film her work Lamentation, which premiered in New York in 1930. This iconic work of Graham places the solo dancer on …
Posted in: Dance, Pic of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
This week’s featured title comes from Henri Dora. “Puzzle March” is illustrated with the image of a refined gentleman hard at work on a puzzle whose solution would seem simple enough: to put the numbers one through fifteen in order. Our distinguished fop is nonetheless frustrated, frazzled, and finally driven mad by his inability to …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith was born on this day in 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Portions of this blog post were taken from the online exhibit, American Treasures of the Library of Congress. Bessie Smith gained immediate success in 1923 with her first recording “Down Hearted Blues”/”Gulf Coast Blues.” Her renditions of Negro life in …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Musicians, Pic of the Week, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse chatted recently with Senior Acquisitions Specialist Loras Schissel. What are you working on right now? I’m putting the final touches on the personal correspondence for the American composer David Diamond, which is neat because it’s not only David corresponding with other musicians and other New York type people, but he was real …
Posted in: Composers, Special Collections, Staff Interviews