Sir Colin Davis remembered: 'He worked little miracles'. Sir Colin Davis, the London Symphony Orchestra's longest-serving principal conductor, died this weekend. Friends, colleagues and collaborators remember an inspirational teacher, a champion of new music – and a mean food-fighter. Read more on the Guardian's website...

Not sure how to play your part?! The NY Philharmonic has put up massive amounts of pdfs of marked-up orchestral parts from their library!!! These are fascinating documents. Take a look here...

Through 8 March 2013, all students, faculty, and staff may access Ethnographic Video Online: Volume II by going directly to: http://anthtrial.alexanderstreet.com. You must be on campus or use VPN off-campus to view.

Ethnographic Video Online: Volume II contains 157 videos including archival and current material. Issues such as environmental crises, refugee migration, and endangered languages are well documented, and every sub-discipline of anthropology is be represented, including cultural, linguistic, applied, social, visual, urban, medical, and physical anthropologies, as well as archaeology.

The collection includes contemporary films from partners such as ZED, the BBC, and RAI, as well as targeted content from Documentary Educational Resources and key archives including the Grenada Centre of Anthropology at the University of Manchester.

In the coming weeks Naxos Music Library-Jazz will make available the catalog of Warner Jazz which, includes the recordings from Warner Bros., Atlantic, Elektra, and Reprise. More than 2,000 albums will become available. Check it out here...

Alexander Street Press has just added 647 albums (10,519 tracks) to Classical Music Library. Most notable is the addition of 316 albums from Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. Among the new content are: Beethoven’s Fidelio with Birgit Nilsson, Lorin Maazel and the Wiener Philharmoniker; Mozart Symphonies with the Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood; Bellini’s Norma with Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge, and Marilyn Horne; Musicals, including Victor/Victoria, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tell Me on a Sunday, Mamma Mia, etc. Plus artists and ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, Carlos Kleiber, Cecilia Bartoli, Sumi Jo, Julie Andrews, Anna Netrebko, Christoph Eschenbach, Barbara Bonney, Lang Lang, and more. Tune in here...

Dave Brubeck, a pianist and composer whose distinctive mixture of experimentation and accessibility made him one of the most popular jazz musicians of the 1950s and ’60s, died Wednesday morning in Norwalk, Conn. He would have turned 92 on Thursday. More details on the NYTimes...

David Lang’s early music, laced with elements of rock and minimalism, was at once bracing and controversial, heavily influenced by the Bang on a Can school he co-founded. As he tells critic Tim Page in Musical America’s tribute, however, “People should change as they get older, and I did.”
See full announcement here...

The dean of American modernist composers, Elliott Carter, died in New York City Monday. He was just about a month shy of his 104th birthday. More details on NPR's blog, Deceptive Cadence.

The database records around 40.000 settings of the Ordinary to range from the closing years of the 14th century up to the present day. In addition to general information on the works and fundamental biographic data, it also contains information on the source material and modern editions for every individual composition. It is now accessible on: www.mdb.uni-mainz.de

Continue reading "The RISM MassDataBase (MDB) is online" »

Richard Warren Jr. 1937 - 2012.
Richard Warren Jr. (Rich), age 75, New Haven native, and 45-year resident of North Haven, died Sunday, October 7, 2012 at Yale New Haven Hospital following a stroke. He was born on September 6, 1937 to Emeline Shaffer Warren and Richard Warren. Over 52 years ago, on August 6, 1960, Rich married Mary-Jo Worthey of Springfield, IL. He is survived by Mary-Jo, daughter Charlotte Warren Disher (and her husband Tony), of Winston-Salem, NC, and son Will (and his wife Reina) of South Hero, VT, grandchildren Anthony Hamilton and Warren Harrison Disher and Silva and Haeli Warren, his two younger sisters, Elizabeth Warren Buss of Portland, OR and Eleanor Warren Faller, (and her husband Jack Faller) of Clinton, and a number of nieces and nephews. Rich attended Foote School in New Haven and graduated 1st in his class from Westminster School in Simsbury. He followed his father’s example, attending Yale College (1959, B.A., magna cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa). Rich then broke with tradition to attend Yale’s rival, Harvard and graduated with an Ed.M in 1960. In Cambridge, MA, Rich met Mary-Jo. Their mutual love of choral and vocal music sealed the relationship. They worked in the Cambridge area for 7 years before he followed his passion for music back to his alma mater to work in the Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings (HSR). In 1970 he was promoted to Curator of HSR. He frequently said he never wanted to retire and served 45 years right up until his illness, dying as an active, part-time employee, of Yale’s Irving S. Gilmore Music Library. All his life, he retained a fascination with cats, trains, trolleys, and electronic gadgets to the delight of his grandchildren. Rich authored many articles on sound recordings, which were published in the ARSC Journal. His independent work includes a discography on Charles Ives and credit for assistance on many others, but his proudest work was in the reissue of historical recordings. Family, friends, and professional colleagues will miss his intelligence, wit, and peaceful mien.

A memorial service will be held in Sprague Memorial Hall, College Street, New Haven at 11:00am on Saturday, October 20, 2012. Donations in lieu of flowers to Neighborhood Music School (100 Audubon Street, New Haven, CT, 06510) and Orchestra New England (PO Box 200123, New Haven, CT 06520).