Fall 2001 Chapter Meeting Report
Santa Barbara, Ca.
Renée McBride, UCLA
Having recently voted to go from a minimum of two meetings to a minimum of one per year, MLA's Southern California Chapter held its first Annual Meeting the weekend of October 19-20, 2001 on the beautiful campus of UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), courtesy of the UCSB Music Library and Local Arrangements Wizard Eunice Schroeder. Twenty-five chapter members attended, a wonderfully healthy number for our chapter.The meeting opened on Friday afternoon at the UCSB library with two chapter member presentations, "Opera Fantasies, Variations, and Quadrilles, or, Searching for Wagner in Drag" by David Gilbert (Librarian for Reference and Instruction, UCLA Music Library) and "Latina Music in Public Libraries" by Marion Scichilone (Supervising Librarian, Technical Services, Downey City Library). David's presentation was an expanded version of a presentation on opera fantasies for piano duet that he gave to the Sheet Music Roundtable at the 2000 MLA Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY. He discussed 4-hand piano transcriptions of orchestral music, noting that the charge of transsexuality or cross dressing leveled at arrangements of concert music such as Beethoven's symphonies, considered watered down and less masculine than the originals, is not leveled at transcriptions of orchestral music from operas. Operas do not present the same burden to represent a full orchestra in four hands on the keyboard. David's current focus is on locating such transcriptions--fantasies de concert, not simply arrangements of arias and choruses--of Wagner's music, or, Wagner "in the drag of 4-hand piano arrangements." David has located arrangements of series of motives, intended to instruct in motive recognition, and numerous arrangements of "Song of the Evening Star" from Tannhäuser, but has found little else.
The alternate title of Marion's presentation about Latina music in public libraries was "Marion, originally from New Hampshire, has to learn about Latina music, and how does she go about it?" Marion highlighted resources that have been helpful to her in developing a collection of Latina music: Amazon.com, public library catalogs, various websites, Ingram's iPage database, and handouts created by Ben Ocón for his REFORMA program presentation at the 2001 ALA Conference, "Bienvenidos! Establishing Library Services for Growing Spanish-speaking Communities." Ocón's handouts list numerous artists, organized by genre. Marion played several examples of different genres of Latina music and shared Ocón's handouts, as well as one of her own listing useful books and websites. The information presented by Marion is already being put to use by MLA/SCC members in their own libraries.
We were next treated to a fascinating tour of UCSB's Performing Arts Collections (PAC) by curator David Seubert. PAC currently has about 35 manuscript collections and 35 sound recording collections. The sound recording collection consists primarily of approximately 180,000 78 rpm records and 6000-7000 cylinders. David noted that because the music on cylinders tends to be "low brow" compared to that on 78's, there is little overlap in the repertoire of the two formats. PAC's four primary collections are author Anthony Boucher's sound recordings, opera singer Lotte Lehmann's archives (including her paintings), composer Bernard Hermann's scores, and the Todd Collection, consisting of 150,000-200,000 sound recordings and related materials such as sound equipment and publishers' catalogs. David also highlighted the collections of British composer and former UCSB faculty Peter Fricker, Dame Judith Anderson, who lived in Santa Barbara for an extended period, and the Lobero Theater, an early 20th-century Santa Barbara opera house. PAC's current collecting focus is on film music, sound recordings, and the local music community. David noted that PAC collects fairly comprehensively in the area of sound recordings and will accept just about any collection of 78's. PAC is attempting to distinguish itself by providing access to its sound recordings via cataloging, making copies of music in the public domain, and providing copies through interlibrary loan.
David played several cylinders and records on a variety of sound equipment, including a Columbia Q gramophone that plays two-minute cylinders, a 1906 Edison Triumph Model B, and a Victrola. David's show-&-tell session included an illustrated record, the manuscript of Bernard Hermann's Vertigo prelude, and a 1933 Hit of the Week recorded on cardboard. The latter was the tune "Sing You Sinners" performed by Duke Ellington recording on a label other than the one with which he had a contract aka the Harlem Hot Chocolates. On top of all the above, the Dept. of Special Collections offered the excellent exhibit "Portraits and Portrayals: Selected Photographs from the Lotte Lehmann Collection."
From the UCSB library we walked to the Arts Library, the only branch library on the UCSB campus, which comprises collections in the visual arts and music. Art Librarian Susan Moon gave a brief description and tour of the art collection, which consists of 225,000 volumes on the history of art and architecture, as well as more than 90,000 exhibition catalogs. We also had a brief opportunity to visit the music collection, which consists of 110,000 books, scores and sound recordings. We continued on to the UCSB Faculty Club for a lovely reception hosted by Theodore Front Music Literature and a most enjoyable dinner. Following dinner we attended a stunning concert by the Kronos Quartet at UCSB's Campbell Hall. The final work on their program was their arrangement of Alfred Schnittke's "Collected Songs Where Every Verse Is Filled with Grief" from his chamber vocal work Concerto for Mixed Chorus in Four Movements. The impact of the work at this time of so much sadness in the world was deeply moving, leaving at least this listener indeed grief-filled.
Saturday morning began with a meeting of the chapter's Publications Committee, who discussed their plans to index Southern California music periodicals not indexed elsewhere. The day's session opened with a panel devoted to current intellectual property issues. Panel members were Don Brown (Professor/ Music Librarian, El Camino College), who discussed intellectual property rights issues as they relate to California community colleges, highlighting El Camino's faculty contract, considered by some to offer the best contractual provisions for faculty in California and for which Don authored the new "Article on Intellectual Property and Privacy Rights;" David Gilbert, who focused on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, describing its pros and cons and recent legal cases related to DMCA; Eunice Schroeder (Music Librarian and Assistant Head, UC Santa Barbara Arts Library), who provided historical background on and discussed the effects of UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act; and Gordon Theil (Head, UCLA Music and Arts Libraries), who described and distributed MLA's "Statement on the Digital Transmission of Electronic Reserves," which Gordon drafted in his role as a member of MLA's Legislation Committee.
The final presentation of our meeting was given by Jacqueline Saunders, Executive Director of the Ojai Festival, a contemporary art music festival that will celebrate its 56th season in 2002. Jackie described the origins of the festival and its distinctive physical setting. The Ojai Festival began in 1947 and has taken place since the early 1950's in Ojai's Libbey Park, a naturally occuring amphitheater in the middle of town. Ojai itself is situated in the beautiful Ojai Valley, an hour north of Los Angeles. Jackie discussed the contributions of various people in the festival's history, such as original artistic director Lawrence Morton, and noted that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has always been the festival's orchestra of choice. Music directors over the years have included Stravinsky, Copland, Foss, Boulez, Salonen, Sir Simon Rattle, and Emanuel Ax. In keeping with its spirit of innovation and experimentation, the festival's 2002 music director will be the Emerson Quartet, who will perform late works by Beethoven and Shostakovich as part of the festival theme of "Last and Latest Thoughts." Also on the 2002 program are pianist Marino Formenti, who will perform music written in the last few years, as well as the "last thoughts" of composers who died in the Terezin concentration camp, and singer Uta Lemper and guitarist Eliot Fisk, who will perform late cabaret songs of Weill and Hollaender. Boulez will return as music director in 2003.
Recent festival innovations are the addition to the front end of the festival of a Sundowner Concert in which a festival soloist or chamber group performs music of their choice in an intimate setting, a master class, and a symposium. The 2001 festival offered the first master class, with Dawn Upshaw, and symposium, featuring John Adams and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano. The University of California Press will be publishing symposium proceedings with additional contributed articles. The 2002 festival symposium and master class will feature the Emerson Quartet, a film on Shostakovich by Tony Palmer, presentations by Maynard Solomon, Bryan Gilliam and Richard Taruskin, and a panel that will hopefully include Luciano Berio.
The Ojai Festival also administers the Young Composers' Awards Program. $2000 is given to a student composer from each of six institutions-CalArts, UCLA, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge, UCSB and USC-and to one of these six goes an additional $5000 and a festival performance.
In response to a question from the audience about festival archives, Jackie explained that they have historical recordings, photo albums from each festival, festival posters, 16 mm film from the 1960's, programs and program notes from each festival, and a database of performers and pieces performed. The festival archivist is a much-loved 91-year-old "guardian of the past." Jackie noted that they have basic raw materials and protection principles in place, but need an organized plan and money to make their archives more organized and accessible.
Our meeting closed with a short and sweet business meeting at which seven new members introduced themselves, in case everyone hadn't met over the course of the weekend. MLA/SCC's first Annual Meeting was a real success, full of sharing, learning and comradery, that suggests that our change to an Annual Meeting will be a fruitful one.
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Music Library Association, Southern California Chapter