Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXV, no. 3 (Fall 1999)
Bulletin Board
Hymn Books to Hit Songs: 150 Years of the Tennessee Music Business
The history of Tennessee's music industry in all its variety is being showcased in an exhibit
co-curated by Paul Wells, Director of the Center for Popular Music, and Alan Boehm, Librarian
for Special Collections at Middle Tennessee State University Library. "Most people in the area
do't realize that there are some truly significant intellectual and cultural resources here,"
says Wells. "All of the materials in this exhibit are from the Center. One or two items from
the nineteenth century are the only known copies to survive anywhere and be available for
researchers." Materials on display include examples of hymn books, ragtime and blues sheet
music, a rare broadside from a Confederate reunion held in Murfreesboro in the early 20th
century, and, of course, modern recordings from Nashville and Memphis. The exhibit will be
open to the general public through March 2000. For more information, call Paul Wells, 615.898.2449,
or Alan BOehm, 615.904.8501.
NINCH to Sponsor Computer Networking Planning Sessions
NINCH began in 1993 as a collaborative project of the American Council of Learned Societies, the
Coalition for Networked Information and the Getty Art History Information Program. Over the next
year, NINCH will be convening committtees to discuss the deverlopment of the National Information
Infrastructure (NII) as a means to preserve, access, and creatively build on our cultural legacy.
If you or a colleague would like to be considered for participation in the "Performing Arts"
committee, please contact Kate Keller at sonneck@aaln.org.
News from the ACLS
The ACLS is pleased to announce the opening of the 1999-2000 competition year for fellowships and grants.
In addition to the ACLS/Frederick Burkhardt REsidential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars,
updated information has now been posted for all ACLS programs at www.acls.org/fel-comp.htm.
Application packets may be ordered from ACLS by completing an online registration form. Alternatively,
the application forms for most programs are now available in PDF format to be printed out from the
ACLS site. Efforts to increase the funds available for fellowships and to reinvigorate the
program have continued during the past year. At the ACLS Annual Meeting in April 1999 ACLS President
John D'Arms was able "to report that significant progress has been made in the major initiative . . .
to more than double the amount ACLS provides in stipends and to more than double the ACLS endowment
devoted to fellowships."
American Composer Series 2000
University of Oregon School of Music and Hult Center for the Performing Arts present "On The
Shoulders of GIants: A Fanfare for the Millennium" 6-8 January 2000. The objective of this
millennial American Composers Series is to look ahead into the new millennium by "standing on
the shoulders of giants," those great composers of the passing century as well as the "common
folk" from whom these composers often borrowed tunes, melodies, and the phrasings of everyday
life. As is appropriate in a composer's centennial year, they will pay special tribute to one
of America's greatest classical giants, Aaron Copland. Tickets go on sale for the 2000 American
Composers Series in late September. Please call 541.682.5000, 800-248-1615, or 541-687-6526 for
details or visit www.ofam.org.
Symposium on Music Education History
A symposium in tribute to Allen P. Britton will be held at the University of Maryland College Park,
on 6 March 2000, preceding the MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference in Washington. Further
information on this Symposium will be available at www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/MUSIC/music.html.
If you wish to submit a paper for consideration, please send a one-page abstrat of the paper by 1 December
1999 to Marie McCarthy, School of Music, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742,
mm148@umail.umd.edu.
CAMEO Meeting
The third meeting of the Council of American Music Education Organizations (CAMEO) was held at
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, on 26 September 1999. The mission of CAMEO "is to foster and
promote, through education and performance, music created in the United States." Chaired by
Barbara Irish, the meeting was attended by individuals representing eleven music organizations:
American Classical Music Hall of Fame, Delta Omicron International Fraternity, Music Educators
National Conference, Mu PHi Epsilon International Fraternity, Music Teachers National Association,
Opera for Youth, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of AMerica, Sigma Alpha Iota International
Music Fraternity, and the Society for American Music (represented by Homer Rudolf)l. The National
Federation of Music Clubs has just moved its "Parade of American Music," which has been
observed during the month of November American Music Month. Member organizations are considering
joining this observance by sponsoring projects, such as composition competitions, performance
competitions, or concerts of American music. The next meeting of CAMEO will be held in
Washington D.C., to coincide with the induction ceremony of the Classical Music Hall of Fame,
scheduled for 28-30 April 2000.
Call for Papers
Article-length essays are wantd on the subject of musical instruments and their role in popular music
for a special issue of Popular Music and Society on "Reading the Instrument: Techniques and
Technologies of Popular Music." Preference will be given to papers that blend technical consideration
of instruments and the music they produce with a strong sense of cultural and historical context and
that strive for methodological and theoretical sophistication. Possible topics include but are not
limited to the rle of musical instruments in the formation of race, gender, class, and sexual
identities; the impact of instruments upon the formation of musical communities and the preservation
of musical traditions; the place of instruments within the composition of music and the practice of musicians;
or the consideration of musical instruments as objects of material culture and technological endeavor.
The deadline for the receipt of manuscripts is 30 June 2000. Manuscripts must be double-spaced
and follow the MLA Handbook for style. Send manuscripts to Steve Waksman, Program in American
Studies, 164 Upham Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, waksmas@muohio.edu.
Perspectives on Global Pop
Garland Publishing announces a new book series consisting of scholarly essay collections exploring
the gloval traffic in musical sounds that is reconfiguring the world's sonic map. Popular musics
of the "west," form jazz to techno, have long sought new audiences and meanings
in their global march; and subaltern popular musics such as soukous, soca, rai, or
bhangrahave also arnered international markets and influence.s "Perspectives on Global Pop"
showcases a cross-disciplinary dialogue on issues, theories, and regional studies in global
popular musics and seeks to evaluate the repercussions of accelerated globalization and cultural
hybridity.
Garland is currently soliciting manuscripts, proposals, ideas, and volume editors for books
in the series. We encourage organizers of thematically-focused symposia, conferences, or panels
to consider editing volumes that issue from such scholarly gatherings. Please contact the
General Editor Gage Averill, Music Department, New York University, 24 Waverly Place, Room
268, New York< NY 10003, 212.998.8302, gage.averill@nyu.edu.
The Petrucci Project
Named after the famous printer of musical scores, Ottaviano dei Petrucci (1466-1359), the Petrucci
Project plans to digitalize the wealth of music in libraries and archives around the world which is
long out of print, virtually inaccesible to most musicians. Like the Gutenberg Project for literature in
English and the Miguel de Cervantes for Spanish literature, the Petrucci Project hopes to enlist the aid
of individuals and institutions for the sanning or photographing of printed material, and for
data entry for manuscripts to fragile for lending or photocopying.
The project has begun with nineteenth-century Romantic composers from the United States, France,
Sweden, and Spain, where there are literally hundreds of neglected compositions. Only this year, for
instance, has George Chadwick been given the recognition due him by being elected to the Composers'
Hall of Fame; Arthur Foote's music is being revived and recorded; and Amy Beach's music is benefitting
from the interest in women composers. To read more, see www.soundpost.org.
Music in American Culture Series at William and Mary
The second annual Music in American Culture series at the College of William and Mary announces the
following events for 2000: 6 February, Rich Alman (Univeristy of Iowa) et al. recreate "The Living Nickelodeon,"
a multi-media, pre-cinema entertainment; 30 March, composer Ben Johnston, "Maximum Clarity" The Musical
Vision of Ben Johnston"; and 7 April, Judith Tick (Northeastern University), "Grass-Roots Modernism:
American Composers at Mid-Century." Coordinated by Mark Tucker, the Music in American Culture
sereis has been organized by an interdisciplinary steering committee made up of Seth Bruggeman
(American Studies), Arthur Knight (English/American Studies), Carol J. Oja (Music/American Studies),
Kimberley Phillips (History/Black Studies), Katherine Preston (Music), and Anne Rasmussen (music).
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 757.221.1288.
Woodrow Wilson-Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in the Humanistic Studies
The Wilson (Woodrow) National Fellowshiop Foundation offers eighty-five one-year fellowships for students entering
a Ph.D. program in humanistic disciplines. Eligible applicants are college seniors and recent
graduates who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Awards provide a stipend of $14,750,
plus tuition and mandated fees. The application deadline is 21 December 1999. Contact Mellon Fellowships,
CN 5329, Princeton, NJ 08543-5329; 800.899.9963; mellon@woodrow.org,
www.woodrow.org/mellon.
Members in the News
Karen Ahlquist has been elected chair of the AMS Capital Chapter and welcomes program ideas
and proposals from SAM members. For particulars, contact her at 202-994-6270 or ahlquist@gwu.edu.
SAM members, mainly from the Eastman School of Music, have put together several tributes to Robert
Russell Bennett, the "dean of Broadway orchestrators." On 17 November 1999, the long-awaited book,
"The Broadway Soung": The Autobiography and Selected Essays of Robert Russell Bennett, wil be
officially launched at Eastman with presentations by the book's editor, George Ference (Univ.
of Wisconsin-Whitewater), and the editor of Eastman Studies in Music, Ralph P. Locke. This
will be followed by a concert featuring original works and Broadway arrangements by Bennett (performed
by the Eastman Wind Ensemble). An exhibit of rare photos, manuscripts, unpublished recordings from the
Eastman Audio Archive, and other Bennettiana is on display for several months in Eastman's Sibley Music
Library. It was curated by Sibley's Head of Public Services Jim Farrington. Meanwhile, two other
exhibits are on view this Fall. One celebrates Frederick Fennell's first decade as the founder
of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. The exhibit is the first to be mounted in a large wall-exhibit
case given by Elizabeth Ludwig-Fennell, in the newley established Eastman Wind Ensemble Room
within the Sibley Music Library. Maestro Fennell wrote the preface to The Broadway Sound and
will be present at Eastman for the book's launching. The other current exhibit is devoted to oboist,
conductor, recordings executive -- and Eastman grad -- Mitch Miller, who will be returning to Eastman
to conduct one of the student orchestras the same week as the book launch; this exhibit was curated
by Sibley Librarian Mary Wallace Davidson. The Wind Ensemble exhibit is curated by Speical
Collections Librarian and Eastman School Archivist, David Peter Coppen.
Anne Dhu McLucas presented a paper on her Apache research, entitled "Popular Transformations of
Native American Ceremonial Music," at the 35th annual conference of the International Council for Traditional
Music in Hiroshima, Japan, on 19 August 1999. In August, she also gave two lectures in conjunction
with the Oregon Festival of American Music, "How Sweet the Sound, from Gospel to Swing," entitled
"American Religious Musical Traditions" and "Charles Ives, William Grant Still, and Florence Beatrice
Price." Professor Emeritus at the Universtiy of Oregon and long-time SAM member, Stephen Stone,
continues to sell out the series of historical jazz concerts by the Emerald City Jazz Kings which he
designs and conducts. Next year's series includes: "Wrappin' It Up in '34 -- So Long Prohibition,
It's Swing Time!"; "Blues in the Night -- The Magic of Harold Arlen"; and "The Latin Tinge."
Mary Jane Corry reports that American music flourishes in the Hudson Valley! This season the
Albany Symphony Orchestra will feature an American composer on all but one of its nine concerts, some of
these works being new commissions. Corry's Baroque ensemble La Grand Ecurie played dances from George
Washington, A Biography in Social Dance by Kate Van Winkle Keller and Charles Cyril
Henrickson and works by John Antes and Raynor Taylor in a concert in Montgomery, New York.
From the summer of 2000, David Nicholls will be based at the University of Southampton, where he
will join a professional team including Nicholas Cook, Mark Everist, and composer Michael Finnissey.
He is currently acting as contributing editor for The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, slated
for publication in 2002.
WIlliams Chamber Players, a new performing group at Williams College, includes Douglas B. Moore. The
ensemble's first season will feature Henry Cowell's 26 Simultaneous Mosaics. Harry Eskew and
David W. Music are among the contributors to With Every Joyful Hearts: Essays on Liturgy and Music
Honoring Marion J. Hatchett, ed. J. Neil Alexander (Church Publishing, Inc., 1999). Eskew's
essay is "Returning to Our Musical Roots: Early Shape-Note Tunes in Recent American Hymnals" and
Music's is "Americans in the English Hymnal of 1906."
Frederik Schuetz, Professor of Music at Bradford College in Bradford, Massachusetts, has been
awarded the Abby Milton O'Neill Distinguished College Professorship at Bradford College "for outstanding
achievement in undergraduate teaching." He will use the stipend that goes with the award to
partially fund his long-held dream of recording a compact disc of American song. Dr. Schuetze teaches
voice, musical theater, and music literature courses at Bradford College, an interdisciplinary liberal arts
college in northeastern Massachusetts.
Arno Drucker's book American Piano Trios: A Resource Guide has been published by
Scarecrow Press. The book contains 589 compositions by American composers for piano trio, including biographical
information about the composers, performance data on the works, and commentary often by the composers.
Updated 12/15/99