July 1999 Number 69
Note: The online and printed editions of this newsletter may differ in content.
IN THIS ISSUE
Kathy Glennan Goes on the Road
Kathy Glennan Goes on the Road
Kathy Glennan will be relocating to the Baltimore area this summer, after spending 14 years at the University of Southern California (one year as a grant-funded Assistant Archivist at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, and 13 as the University's music cataloger). Although she's moving, Kathy remains a Southern Californian at heart; in fact, she'll start telecommuting 1/2 time for USC starting in July, keeping her primary assignment of music cataloging. Thus, her e-mail address remains the same, and it will be the best way to stay in touch.Kathy's association with MLA/SCC began during library school, when she interned at the UCLA Music Library. Steve Fry not only suggested the topic for her library school specialization paper (Music Periodicals Published in Los Angeles County), he also arranged for her to present it at the May 1985 joint SCC/NCC meeting in Glendale. It didn't take long for the Chapter to find other outlets for Kathy; she served on the Board as Membership Chair from 1987-89, and as Vice Chair/Chair/Past Chair from 1991-94. Her major efforts in this latter position included writing the invitation to host MLA '99 and spearheading the effort to revise the Chapter's by-laws. A new membership category was introduced at that time, which Kathy will now be able to take advantage of: non-regional member. Kathy was instrumental in creating a Chapter presence on the Internet, thanks to the generosity of USC -- first with the MLA/SCC gopher, and more recently with the Chapter website and listserv. Even after moving, Kathy intends to remain the co-owner of MLASCC-L and the MLASCC webmaster; however, Wayne Shoaf has graciously agreed to serve as the local liaison for these activities. Kathy most recently served as co-chair of the Local Arrangements Committee for MLA '99, where she used her life-long knowledge of the Los Angeles area to help conference attendees make the most of their visit.
We will miss Kathy’s energy and commitment, but we’re very glad we’re not losing her altogether. Good luck in Baltimore, and we’ll see you in Louisville, Kathy!
MLASCC-L: the chapter electronic mailing list
Just a reminder that the Chapter's listserv, MLASCC-L, is still up and running. The traffic on the list is considerably less now that MLA '99 is behind us. The mailing list is used primarily by members of the Chapter to communicate about MLA/SCC issues and activities.
If you have an e-mail account but aren't yet receiving mail from the list, please subscribe as soon as possible. Make sure you subscribe using your preferred e-mail address. Just send a message to listproc@usc.edu with the following command in the body of the message:
SUBSCRIBE MLASCC-L Firstname Lastname
If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Glennan.
From the Chair
This past year has been a very successful one for the chapter. Although we only mounted a single chapter meeting, we hosted an extraordinarily successful national meeting, of which we should all be proud. Most especially, however, we owe a great debt of gratitude to Renée McBride and Kathy Glennan, co-chairs of the Local Arrangements Committee, who guided the very complicated preparations. Before the meeting my mailbox seemed to be constantly brimming with messages about this or that detail. For me this is a concrete memory of how conscientious and masterly a job Kathy and Renée did in planning and executing the preparations. Although the Music Library Association provides a handbook of instructions of how to prepare for and run the meeting, it is but a starting point. The various activities--raising money and coopting sponsors, organizing the receptions, providing the many services needed, organizing the tours, registration, etc.--require an extraordinary amount of planning and coordination. Thank you Renée and Kathy. You did us proud.
Although everyone on the LAC deserves commendation for their hard work, Steve Fry will be remembered in particular for his activities as vinologist and band leader. The MLA Wine Event was a great success. Not only was money raised for the chapter, but more importantly, the event provided the meeting with a uniquely Californian flavor. Those wise enough to do so carried back home with them--in bottled form--a taste to remember us by. Steve also led the triumphant debut of the MLA Big Band, with special guest, Kenny Burrell, at the banquet. Thank you Steve! This was another event to distingish this meeting from others in the minds of those attending.
I think the MLA meeting will be remembered for that which makes LA most distinctive: the diversity of the LA experience. The memories that leap to my mind--and yours will necessarily be different--include great art (the Getty tour) and libraries (LAPL, the Huntington tour), film music (Paramount Studios tour, the film music plenary session) and jazz (Central Avenue Sounds at the Jazz Roundtable, and the Latin jazz of Pancho Sanchez at the banquet), contemporary music (Paul Reale at the Contemporary Music Roundtable) and contemporary technology (digital audio reserves and the digital Grove sessions), music from the West (the subway organ crawl) and the Near East (the UCLA Near East Ensemble with cocktails!). No, LA is much more that surf, sun, and movies. Pat yourselves on the back MLA/SCC.
WINE AUCTION
The MLA Wine Event not only benefited the chapter financially, but has left us with some surplus cases of both red and white wine. There will be a web-based auction of this remaining wine starting in July and concluding at the Fall Chapter meeting in San Diego. There will be both single bottle and half-case lots to bid on. The minimum bids will be set at the cost price plus $1. Watch the chapter web site for details.FALL MEETING
The fall meeting of the Chapter will be held in San Diego, hosted by UCSD. Garrett Bowles will be serving as program chair. If you have ideas for presentations, contact Garrett and the UCSD Music Library.It is our turn to host the Northern/Southern Chapters joint meeting, so we will be extending an invitation to the Northern California Chapter to join us.
CHAPTER OFFICERS
This Spring I appointed Rhonelle Runner, Steve Fry and Garrett Bowles to the Nominating Committee. Their efforts resulted in a slate of candidates for election, but only one per position, rendering an election unnecessary. So it is my pleasure to announce that Kris Stanton, Music and Theatre Arts Librarian at Cal State Long Beach, will serve as Chair-Elect this coming year. She was active in the Midwest Chapter of MLA before moving to the LA area a little over a year ago. She is enjoying the SoCal weather, the drive-thru coffee shops, and the fact that avocados are always present on restaurant menus!Joan Flintoff LoPear and Val Mitchell continue as Board Members, and Nanette Schneir has agreed to continue as Secretary/Treasurer. Rhonelle Runner, Music Librarian at Occidental College, is chair this coming year. Thank you Rhonelle!
I am also very pleased that Renée McBride has agreed to take on the role of Newsletter Editor. After a hiatus of over a year the Newsletter is now back in print. I hope that you will assist Renée as much as you can. Send her news, opinion and announcements. This is our forum. Use it!
There are other ways in which you can contribute to the chapter also. These include running for office and being involved in the administration of the chapter, and helping to organize our meetings. I hope that those of you who have not been involved for a while will seriously consider ways in which you can increase your involvement. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me, or any of the Chapter officers.
MLA GRANTS
Each year the Music Library Association offers competitive grants to local chapters to assist in special projects. There is no specific list of acceptable projects, but the activity funded should serve to benefit the chapter and music librarianship in our region. The type of projects that have been funded in the past include publications, subsidies for special meetings, and educational programs. The call for proposals usually appears early in the new year, so this is the time to start thinking about a proposal. I have a list of projects funded in the past which I am happy to share.Stephen Davison
UCLA Music Library
What's Up? Monica Burdex (CSU Northridge) has two recent publications: an article on Gilmor Brown, founder of the Pasadena Playhouse, Western Regional Director for the Federal Theatre Project, erstwhile proponent of the "Little Theatre Movement," theatre educator, etc., in Oxford University Press' Dictionary of American Biography, 1998; and a review of Colin Mackerras' Peking Opera in the Theatre Library Association's Broadside (Fall 1998). Monica has also been awarded a sabbatical for Spring 2000 to complete an annotated bibliography of newspaper listings from the Chicago Defender and Pittsburg Courier on the Theatre Owners' Booking Association (T.O.B.A.), a Black (actually was interracial) vaudeville management group. In addition, Monica will be "trying to keep out of trouble - NOT."
The UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive has recently received a six-month extension to its NEH Preservation and Access grant titled Preserving and Accessing World Music at the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. As a pilot project, the Archive staff selected eleven field collections, originally recorded on analog open-reel tape in the 1950s and 1960s, to re-record on both analog open-reel tape and CD-R. Included in the project are the Arnold Bake collection from India, the Donn Borcherdt collection from Mexico, the Sotiris Chianis collection from Greece, the Harold Courlander collection from the African diaspora, the Jose Maceda collection from the Philippines, and the Klaus Wachsmann collection from Uganda.
At least 3 MLA/SCCer's attended the 1999 Ojai Festival: Marsha Berman, Louise Spear and Renée McBride. In Renée 's opinion, this year's Festival was the best since her first in 1996, when Pierre Boulez was music director. This year's music director was Esa Pekka Salonen, who highlighted contemporary Finnish music, performers and art. It was the emphasis on contemporary that made this year's Festival such an exciting musical experience--some of the music was actually composed in the past decade--and the Finns know how to have some serious musical fun. You can read some reviews from the Los Angeles Times. The Ojai Festival is one of Southern California's most remarkable offerings; for an incredibly low price (under $70) you can spend a weekend in Ojai's intimate Libbey Park, listening to excellent music--much of it contemporary (or at least 20th-century) in the best years, some of it contemporary every year--performed and conducted by some of the world's most accomplished musicians (and often accompanied by some of SoCal's most accomplished birds, crickets and frogs). Picnicking with friends on the park lawn before evening concerts and shopping at the arts festival that occupies the remainder of Libbey Park are also parts of the experience. Next year's Ojai Festival is scheduled for June 2-4, 2000, with Sir Simon Rattle as music director.
Don Brown (El Camino College) and Renée McBride (UCLA) were spotted in Las Vegas last May at the MLA Mountain/Plains Chapter's annual meeting. Former MLA/SCCer Vic Cardell (University of Kansas) helped Don and Renée feel right at home with his presentation about Clora Bryant and Los Angeles jazz. Vic sends his greetings to MLA/SCC friends, and Renée hopes Don won more money than she did.
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MLA/SCC at ARSC
MLA/SCC was well represented at the annual meeting of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), which was held at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on May 19-22. Attending from Southern California were Garrett Bowles, UC San Diego; David Seubert, UC Santa Barbara; Martin Silver, Martin Silver Musical Literature; and Louise Spear, UC Los Angeles. Also in attendance was our MLA/NCC colleague, Barbara Sawka from Stanford University.The ARSC meeting was hosted by the Mills Music Library, with Geri Laudati and Steve Sundell serving as Local Arrangements chairs. MLA member Jim Farrington, Eastman School of Music, was the Program chair. Special events included live entertainment by Brian Brueggen and the Mississippi Valley Dutchmen, one of Wisconsin’s finest polka bands, and a program by comedic songwriters Lou and Peter Berryman, who have recently released their 11th CD, Some Kinda Funny on Cornbelt Records.
Papers were presented on a variety of topics. A session on Hispanic Discography was moderated by Richard Spottswood and included presentations by Cristóbal Díaz Ayala from Fundación Musicalia in Puerto Rico, Chris Strachwitz from Arhoolie Records, and Theodore Beardsley of the Hispanic Society of America. There was also a presentation on Mounting Discographic Catalogs on the Web: Examples from the Latin American Collection at the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music by Suzanne Mudge and Emma Dederick-Colon (who danced up a salsa storm at our MLA banquet at the Regal Biltmore Hotel).
Warren Gilson reminisced about Harry Partch at Madison, and there was A Live Nipper Interview with Robin and Joan Rolfs of Audio Antique LLC. Conferees also learned about Elsie Janis, Alan Lomax, Furtwängler and Toscanini, Fred Waring, Rachmaninoff, Ernie Kovacs, the Nixon tapes, Sound Forge, Paramount Records, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the North American Phonograph Company, and the Wisconsin Music Archives.
Garrett Bowles moderated the AAA (Associated Audio Archivists) session and talked about What Is/Was AAA? Garrett also gave a presentation in the session on Formulating Discographical Guidelines for ARSC Journal.
David Seubert, as member of the ARSC Technical Committee, gave a presentation on optical media in a session titled CDR as Preservation Medium. There was a lively discussion about the committee’s tentative recommendation to use the CDR as a digital preservation medium.
Everyone enjoyed the lovely spring weather and scenic views of Lake Mendota from the windows of the historic Edgewater Hotel. Conferees will smile when remembering the unexpected polka theme that appeared and reappeared throughout the week ...
Louise Spear
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive
Time For Renewal!
Please use the MLA/SCC membership form to renew your Chapter membership for 1999-2000. Dues are still a low, low $10--or less, depending on your category of membership--and ensure your receipt of all the big, big Chapter news from July 1999 through June 2000. Also, please take advantage of this opportunity to indicate your interest in participating in Chapter activities.
MLA/SCC Executive Board
Chair: Stephen Davison, UCLA
Vice Chair/Chair Elect: Rhonelle Runner, Occidental College
Secretary/Treasurer: Nanette Schneir, Santa Monica Public Library
Members-At-Large: Joan Flintoff LoPear, UCLA
Valencia Mitchell, Cerritos College
Past Chair: John Thornbury, California State University, LA
MLA/SCC Newsletter, No. 69, July 1999
Editor: Renée McBride, UCLAThe MLA/SCC Newsletter is published three times a year. Please send articles, reviews, conference summaries, communications, and membership news to: Renée McBride, UCLA Young Research Library, A1538 YRL, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575; e-mail: rmcbride@library.ucla.edu; phone: (310) 206-5853; fax: (310) 206-4947
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