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The entries below describe music collections that do not focus on LGBTQ+ materials and/or artists, but do include relevant materials. These relevant items have been identified at the bottom of each entry. The links included direct to the finding aid for each collection; for collections that are unprocessed, link directs to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
George Antheil (b. July 8, 1900 Trenton, NJ; d. February 12, 1959, New York, NY) was a composer, pianist, author and inventor. The self-proclaimed "bad boy of music," he enjoyed an avant-garde reputation and strove to be in the vanguard of artistic development in both his music and writings about music. He composed orchestral works, chamber pieces, ballets, operas, and film and television scores. Böske Antheil was a writer and the wife of George Antheil.
This collection includes Sylvia Beach correspondence and Jean Cocteau correspondence.
In 1941 the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation appointed a sub-committee on music to advise the Army, Navy and Marine Corps on all matters pertaining to musical activities within military camps and reservations during and after World War II. The sub-committee also helped coordinate plans for musical entertainment of the soldiers in the communities outside the camps and stations. Harold Spivacke, chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress, was named the chair.
This collection includes Aaron Copland correspondence.
Ernst Bacon (b. May 26, 1898, Chicago, IL; d. March 16, 1990, Orinda, CA) was a composer, pianist, and conductor. A multi-faceted musician, Bacon composed and conducted symphonies, operas, piano concertos, musical theater works, and ensemble and solo instrumental and vocal music.
This collection includes Thornton Wilder correspondence.
The collection contains musical arrangements for approximately 650 songs and instrumental numbers used by Barnet and his band. The majority of these arrangements are represented by full scores. Approximately 50 arrangers are represented in the collection, including Billy May, Andy Gibson, George Siravo, Conn Humphries, William Moore, Dave Matthews, Skippy Martin, Neal Hefti, Horace Henderson, and Bobby Burnett.
This collection includes Ralph Burns arrangements.
Edward Beach (b. January 16, 1923, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; d. December 25, 2010, Eugene, OR) became interested in jazz music as a teenager. He took a position in 1961 with WRVR, a not-for-profit station operated by New York City's Riverside Church. It was there that he developed the much-praised format of the "Just Jazz" broadcast, which featured a single artist on each show.
This collection includes portraits of Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Billie Holiday, and Vaslaw Nijinsky.
Nadia Boulanger (b. September 16, 1887, Paris, France; d. October 22, 1979, Paris, France) was a renowned composition teacher and the first woman to conduct several major symphony orchestras. She was also a composer, but considered her sister Lili, who died in 1918 at the age of 24, to have been a superior composer, and she spent much of her life championing Lili's music.
This collection includes Marc Blitzstein’s review of Lili Boulanger’s compositions.
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (b. October 30, 1864, Chicago, IL; d. November 4, 1953, Cambridge, MA) was a patron of chamber music, and a composer and pianist. The collection contains music manuscripts of works commissioned by Coolidge and by the Coolidge Foundation and manuscripts that were dedicated to but not commissioned by Coolidge.
This collection includes music and correspondence of Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, and Gian Carlo Menotti.
Sidney Robertson Cowell (b. June 2, 1903, San Francisco, CA; d. February 23, 1995, Shady, NY) was a pioneering ethnomusicologist, folk song and ethnic music collector and recordist, ethnographer, teacher, and writer. She was married to modernist composer Henry Cowell. The collection consists of Sidney Robertson Cowell's personal papers that document her life and work.
This collection includes John Cage correspondence, Lou Harrison correspondence, Colin McPhee correspondence, and Henry Cowell correspondence, writings, scores, and subject files.
Vernon Duke (b. Vladimir Alexandrovitch Dukelsky, October 10, 1903, Minsk, Belarus; d. January 16, 1969, Santa Monica, CA) was a composer, songwriter, author, poet, translator, and businessman.
This collection includes Aaron Copland scores, John LaTouche correspondence and scores, and Jerome Lawrence correspondence and scores.
Robert Evett (b. November 30, 1922, Loveland, CO; d. February 3, 1975, Takoma Park, MD) was a composer, arts editor, and music critic. He was book editor and music critic for the New Republic from 1952 until 1968 and editor of the Arts and Letters section of the Atlantic Monthly. He was also a contributing critic of books and music for the Washington Star-News from 1961 until 1975 and its book editor from 1970 until 1975.
This collection includes Elizabeth Bishop correspondence.
Composer Jacopo Ficher, (b. January 15, 1896, Odessa, Russia; d. September 9, 1978, Buenos Aires, Argentina) came from an artistic family that included many musicians as well as actors on the Russian stage. He settled in Buenos Aires in the 1920s, where in 1929 he was one of the founders of the Grupo Renovación, which rapidly became the leading organization for the promotion of a new musical trend in Argentina.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence, Aaron Copland correspondence, and Henry Cowell correspondence.
Irving Fine (b. December 3, 1914, Boston, MA; d. August 23, 1962, Boston, MA) was an American composer, teacher, and conductor. He received his BA and his MA from Harvard, and he also studied orchestral conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood and composition with Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau, outside Paris, and at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence, Aaron Copland correspondence, and Ned Rorem correspondence.
Lukas Foss (b. August 15, 1922, Berlin, Germany; d. February 1, 2009, New York, NY) was an American composer, conductor, pianist, and educator. The collection, which documents Foss’s life and career, consists of music manuscripts, correspondence, business papers, programs and other materials.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence, John Cage correspondence, Aaron Copland correspondence, and Henry Cowell correspondence.
The Franko Goldman Family Papers are primarily related to the professional lives of brothers Sam Franko (b. January 20, 1857, New Orleans, LA; d. May 6, 1937, New York, NY) and Nahan Franko (b. July 23, 1861, New Orleans, LA; d. May 7, 1930, Amityville, NY), their nephew Edwin Franko Goldman (b. January 1, 1878, Louisville, KY; d. February 21, 1956, New York, NY), and his son Richard Franko Goldman (b. December 7, 1910, New York, NY; d. January 19, 1980, Baltimore, MD). Sam and Nahan were violinists and conductors; Edwin was a bandmaster and band composer; and Richard was a bandmaster, composer, educator, and music critic.
This collection includes Aaron Copland correspondence and Henry Cowell correspondence.
Morton Gould (b. December 10, 1913, New York, NY; d. February 21, 1996, Orlando, FL) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist. The collection contains music, including manuscripts, printed scores, and sketches; correspondence; business papers; writings by and about Gould; photographs; scrapbooks; programs, clippings, and promotional materials; and financial and legal documents.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence and Jerome Robbins correspondence.
Roy Harris (b. February 12, 1898, Lincoln County, OK; d. October 1, 1979, Santa Monica, CA) was an American composer known for his music on American subjects. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and with Arthur Bliss, Arthur Farwell, and Nadia Boulanger. During the course of his career he taught at a number of American colleges and universities including Mills College, Westminster Choir College, and the Juilliard School.
This collection includes John Cage correspondence.
Music publishing executive and author Hans Heinsheimer (b. September 25, 1900, Karlsruhe, Germany; d. October 12, 1993, New York, NY) began his career in Austria, becoming head of the opera department of the Viennese music publisher Universal Edition. He stayed in America after the Austrian Anschluss, working first for music publisher Boosey and Hawkes and later becoming vice president of G. Schirmer, Inc.
The collection includes Samuel Barber materials.
Louis Kaufman (b. May 10, 1905, Portland, OR; d. February 9, 1994, Los Angeles, CA) was a violinist noted for his performances on the soundtracks of more than 500 films as well as for his chamber music performances with an array of extraordinary string players including Pablo Casals, Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, and Gregor Piatigorsky. His wife, pianist Annette Leibole Kaufman served as his accompanist for more than fifty years.
This collection includes Samuel Barber materials; Aaron Copland correspondence and subject files; David Diamond correspondence; Dimitri Mitropoulos correspondence; Daniel Pinkham correspondence and subject files; Francis Poulenc photographs and subject files; Henri Sauguet correspondence; and Alice B. Toklas correspondence.
Andre Kostelanetz (b. December 22, 1901, Saint Petersburg, Russia; d. January 13, 1980, Port-au-Prince, Haiti) was an American conductor, arranger, and pianist. He was known for juxtaposing popular music with classical repertoire in his radio broadcasts and concert performances which included some of the world's leading orchestras.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence and photographs; Aaron Copland correspondence, scores, subject files, and photographs; and Virgil Thomson correspondence.
Serge Koussevitzky (b. July 26, 1874, Vishniy Volochek, Russia; d. June 4, 1951, Boston, MA) was an innovator and visionary in his roles as a composer, music director, music publisher, recording artist, champion of contemporary music, and supporter of musicians' rights. He founded the Berkshire Music Center (now Tanglewood Music Center) in 1940, and as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949, he championed the music of American composers.
This collection includes Samuel Barber correspondence and subject files; Benjamin Britten correspondence and subject files; Aaron Copland correspondence, subject files, photographs, and writings; and David Diamond correspondence and subject files.
Boris Koutzen (b. April 1, 1901, Uman, Russia; d. December 10, 1966, Mount Kisco, NY) was a violinist, composer, conductor and teacher. He played in the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He taught at the Philadelphia Conservatory and at Vassar College.
This collection includes Thornton Wilder correspondence.
Wanda Landowska (b. July 5, 1879, Warsaw, Poland; d. August 16, 1959, Lakeville, CT) was a keyboardist, composer, and teacher best known for revitalizing widespread interest in harpsichord performance in the twentieth century. Denise Restout (b. November 24, 1915, Paris, France; d. March 9, 2004, Lakeville, CT) was a French keyboard teacher, and Landowska's protégé, assistant, editor, and biographer.
This collection includes Aaron Copland photographs and correspondence, and Francis Poulenc correspondence, photographs, and scores.
Herman Langinger (b. 1908, Spas, Austria; d. 1979) was a music engraver, printer, and editor for the New Music Society of California and other music publishers. The files contain pre-publication and published music materials, including annotated manuscript and holograph scores, edited score paste-ups, and negative and positive proof copies. Most of the materials are related to the production of Henry Cowell's quarterly publication New Music and span the entire period that it was published.
This collection includes John Cage Amores materials and Henry Cowell scores and correspondence.
Minna Lederman Daniel (b. March 17, 1896, Manhattan, NY; d. October 29, 1995, Manhattan, NY) was an American writer and editor who specialized in music and dance. A major influence on twentieth-century music, she was a founding member of the League of Composers, a group of musicians and proponents of modern music. In 1924, she helped launch the League's magazine, The League of Composers Review (in 1925 the name was changed to Modern Music), which was the first American journal to manifest an interest in contemporary composers.
This collection includes John Cage correspondence, subject files, and writings; Aaron Copland correspondence and subject files; Merce Cunningham correspondence and subject files; and Virgil Thomson correspondence, subject files, and writings.
Composer Nikolai Lopatnikoff (b. March 16, 1903, Revel [now Tallinn], Estonia; d. Oct. 7, 1976, Pittsburgh, PA) studied music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, prior to leaving Russia with his family at the start of the Russian Revolution of 1917. He lived first in Helsinki and later in Heidelberg, and then in Mannheim, Germany. During the 1920s Lopatnikoff’s music began to be performed in Europe as well as in the United States. He moved to London in 1936 and then New York in 1939; he taught at several American institutions.
This collection includes Aaron Copland correspondence.
Nikolay Karlovich Medtner (b. January 5, 1880, Moscow, Russia; d. November 13, 1951, London, England) was a pianist and composer. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory, becoming a professor there before he was thirty years old. He left Russia in the 1920s, settling for a time in Berlin and then in Paris before moving to London in 1936 where he lived for the remainder of his life. He produced a significant body of compositions, all of which involved the piano.
This collection includes Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji correspondence.
The League of Composers was founded in New York in 1923 to promote American composers and introduce audiences to the best in new music through high quality performances. Its quarterly journal, Modern Music, was published from 1924 to 1946 and edited by Minna Lederman Daniel. Initially called The League of Composers' Review, the name was changed to Modern Music in 1925. It is one of the most distinguished collections of criticism and scholarship concerning early twentieth-century musical arts.
This collection includes Aaron Copland correspondence, Henry Cowell correspondence, Lincoln Kirstein correspondence, and Virgil Thomson correspondence.
Hans Moldenhauer (b. December 13, 1906, Mainz, Germany; d. October 19, 1987, Spokane, WA) was a musicologist, pianist, music collector, and mountain climber. Moldenhauer emigrated to the United States in 1938, settled in mountainous Spokane, WA, in 1939. In 1942, as he embarked upon a musical career in collecting, performance, and writing; he founded the Spokane Conservatory. Over the course of forty years he established the Moldenhauer Archives, which consist primarily of music (chiefly manuscript), correspondence, photographs, sound recordings, books, newspaper clippings, printed programs, drawings, and engravings.
This collection includes Frank Wedekind material.
The George Moss Collection was given to the Library of Congress in 1996 by Fairleigh Dickinson University. Originally, the collection contained approximately 5,000 78-rpm discs, nearly 550 cylinders, several phonographs, record catalogs, and twelve boxes of sheet music.
This collection includes Cole Porter scores.
Victoria Phillips (b. June 4, 1960, Boston, MA) received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She specializes in Cold War history, United States cultural diplomacy, and international relations. Phillips created and directs Columbia University’s Cold War Archival Research Project (CWAR), which takes advanced undergraduate and graduate students to archives in the United States and Europe in order to develop new scholarship on the cultural Cold War.
This collection includes Joseph Gifford interview and photographs.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (b. April 1, 1873, Oneg, near Sambov, Russia; d. March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, CA) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and for the next 25 years he pursued a career as a performer, touring widely in Europe and the United States. He left Russia following the Revolution in 1917, settling in New York in 1918.
This collection includes Henry Cowell correspondence.
Artur Rodzinski (b. January 2, 1892, Spalato, Dalmatia [now Croatia]; d, November 27, 1958, Boston, MA) was a Polish-American conductor who specialized in opera and symphonic music. . Rodzinski began his music career as a choral conductor and then made his conducting debut in Verdi’s Ernani at the Lwów Opera in 1920. He was a sought-after guest conductor during the 1930s, appearing with the N.Y. Philharmonic in 1934 and 1937.
This collection includes a Leonard Bernstein score and subject files; an Aaron Copland score and correspondence; and a David Diamond score and correspondence.
Randolph S. Rothschild (b. June 23, 1909; d. February 27, 2003) spent his life as a champion of new music. He was involved in the commissioning of an unusually large number of new musical works through his presidency of the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore from 1954 to 1993 and his membership on the board of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from the 1960s.
This collection includes Henry Cowell scores and Charles Wuorinen scores.
Max Rudolf (b. June 15, 1902, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; d. February 28, 1995, Philadelphia, PA) was a German-born American conductor and music educator. He is best known for his work with the Metropolitan Opera, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he served as head of the opera and conducting department from 1970 until 1973.
This collection includes Samuel Barber correspondence, David Diamond correspondence, and Gian Carlo Menotti correspondence.
Music publisher Arthur Paul Schmidt (b. April 1, 1846, Altona, Germany; d. May 5, 1921, Boston, MA) immigrated to the United States in 1866. He worked for the G.D. Russell publishing house in Boston before opening his own business in 1876. The A.P. Schmidt Company soon gained a reputation for publishing works of many distinguished American composers and became one of the largest music publishing and importing firms in the United States.
This collection includes Henry Cowell correspondence, David Diamond correspondence, Daniel Pinkham correspondence, and Thornton Wilder correspondence.
Artur Schnabel (b. April 17, 1882, Lipnik, Kunzendorf, Austria-Hungary; d. August 15, 1951, Axenstein, Switzerland) was an Austrian-born American pianist, pedagogue, and composer. Mary Virginia Foreman Le Garrec (b. April 5, 1908, Minneapolis, MN; d. 2012) was Schnabel's student and confidante.
This collection includes Dimitri Mitropoulos correspondence.
Nicholas Slonimsky (b. April 27, 1894, St. Petersburg, Russia; d. December 25, 1995, Los Angles, CA) was a lexicographer, composer, and writer on music. Slonimsky came to the United States in 1923 and continued his studies at the Eastman School of Music (1923-1925). In the 1930s and early 1940s he became known for conducting first performances of works by Ives, Varèse, Riegger, Cowell, Chàvez, and other composers of the Americas.
This collection includes Henry Cowell correspondence.
Harold Spivacke (b. July 18, 1904, New York, NY; d. May 19, 1977, Washington, D.C.) was a music librarian, administrator, musicologist, and musician. He was chief of the Library of Congress Music Division for thirty-five years, from 1937 to 1972. In 1955, he married Rose Marie Grentzer, a noted teacher and choral conductor.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence and Aaron Copland correspondence.
Edward Steuermann (b. June 18, 1892, Sambor, Eastern Galicia, Poland; d. 1962) was a pianist, composer, and teacher. He was married to Clara Steuermann (b. February 10, 1922, Los Angeles, CA; d. January 16, 1982, Norwalk, CA), a pianist, music theorist, and music librarian who served as president of the Music Library Association from 1975 to 1976.
This collection includes Francis Poulenc scores.
William Remsen Strickland (b. January 25, 1914, Defiance, OH; d. November 17, 1991, Westport, CT) began his musical career an organist. He eventually shifted his focus to conducting, and while serving in the U.S. Army (1941-1946) he founded the Army Music School Choir. Strickland spent the 1950s championing the works of American composers both at home and abroad and began experimenting with electronic music in the late 1960s.
This collection includes Samuel Barber correspondence and scores; Aaron Copland correspondence; Henry Cowell correspondence, a score, and photographs; Gian Carlo Menotti correspondence; and Ned Rorem correspondence.
The United States Information Agency (USIA), established in 1953, took as part of its mission the promotion and financial support of young, virtuoso American performers as "ambassadors" of international understanding and goodwill. Following the success of a 1982 pilot tour of France and Germany, the program expanded rapidly. Touring continued until 1989. In addition to its support of performers, the program commissioned works from eminent American composers.
This collection includes a Lee Hoiby score.