September 2004

Bruce D. Wilson Retires

Dr. Bruce D. Wilson, Head, Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library since 1995, retired on July 1, 2004, from the university following 36 years of service in the School of Music, the Music Library, and the Performing Arts Library. The Libraries celebrated his tenure with him on Wednesday, July 21, with a party in “the house that Wilson built,” the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Family, friends, current and former library staff, performing arts academic staff, Smith Center staff, and off-campus professional colleagues gathered in the Piano Room and Gallery of the library to wish him well in the next phase of his life.

A week after the celebration, Bruce began a year-long, part-time commitment for the UM Libraries as Special Assistant to the Dean. This position will enable Bruce to wrap up development projects already underway at the time of his retirement.

Bruce Wilson’s influence on the development of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, its collections, its staff, and the collegial atmosphere in this special area of the Libraries and Smith Center will be dearly missed. This indisputable fact was emphasized repeatedly through the speeches, conversations, and messages to Bruce in a memory book.

Journal Storage Archive Music Titles come to MSPAL

There are 32 new music publications available online through a service known to scholars as JSTOR. This is an archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published prior to the last five years, some the last four years. Researchers can access these journals through ResearchPort by selecting the subject "Music" and searching for "JSTOR" in the field Database Name.

Spanning a range of 1869 through 2001, this diverse selection of American and international music journals places a strong emphasis on musicology. Other music subjects covered in this selection include ethnomusicology, theory, opera, popular music, and music librarianship.

JSTOR, an independent not-for-profit organization, helps to relieve the burden of libraries to include long runs of back-files of scholarly journals. Providing appropriate stack space for such a high volume of journals proves to be both an expensive and impractical endeavor. Converting the back issues of paper journals into searchable electronic formats reduces required shelf space while simultaneously improving access to the journal content. By providing this electronic access copy, digitization also ensures a longer life for original paper copies.

Resident Scholar, Professor Makoto Nagashima

This year, the UM Libraries have been hosting Professor Makoto Nagashima, an international scholar researching the history of music education in the United States. Professor Nagashima, Assistant Professor at Naruto University of Education of Naruto, Japan, arrived in March 2004 and will stay through December 2004. He has devoted much of his research to the Lowell Mason Collection and Luther Whiting Mason Collection in Special Collections in Performing Arts (SCPA).

MSPAL Faculty Step in to Assist Ailing School of Music Professor

When Dr. Shelley Davis, Associate Professor of Musicology, fell ill earlier in the spring semester, he turned to two members of the MSPAL faculty, Bonnie Jo Dopp and Donald Manildi, to take over two of his classes.

Bonnie Jo Dopp, Curator of SCPA, stepped in for Music and Art: Mutual Influences (MUSC448A). Ms. Dopp and Dr. Davis had collaborated on a 30-page glossary for the course, deeming her a logical person to shepherd the class. Ms. Dopp lectured on Symbolism in French music (especially Debussy and Lili Boulanger), Erik Satie and Dada, and artistic and musical responses to WWII.

Ms. Dopp also organized guest lecturers such as Dr. Richard Wexler (Gustav Klimt, Gustave Mahler), Kristian Twombly (experimental art/music installations), Joan Stahl of the University of Maryland Libraries (John Cage/Robert Rauschenberg/Merce Cunningham collaborations), and Dr. Jennifer DeLapp (Aaron Copland and American culture).

Donald Manildi, Curator of IPAM, took on the Frederic Chopin Seminar (MUSC 699C), an exploration of Chopin's life, times, music, performance practices, and historical contexts. Mr. Manildi picked up on the outline were Dr. Davis left off, guided the students through their individual research topics, and brought in interesting Chopin recordings from the IPAM collections.

IPAM Curator in Recital

On May 22, 2004, Donald Manildi, Curator of IPAM, performed a piano recital at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Gildenhorn Recital Hall as a fundraiser to support the Neil Ratliff Fund. For this occasion, Mr. Manildi assembled a balanced program of well-known masterworks (Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, and Ravel), ending with two virtuoso transcriptions (Rachmaninoff-Wild, Johann Strauss-Godowsky) that possess strong audience appeal. All pieces Mr. Manildi learned a number of years ago and returned to with the wisdom of maturity.

Mr. Manildi has made many appearances with a broad repertoire of over 200 works. He holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Washington (Seattle) and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Curator of IPAM since 1993, Mr. Manildi develops and preserves collections, acquires significant new materials, attends to visits and inquiries of performers and scholars from around the world, and appears as a guest lecturer for various UM School of Music classes.

MSPAL Staff Member Awarded a Stipendium for Research in Switzerland

Benjamin R. Levy, Library Assistant for Contemporary Scores in SCPA, was awarded a stipendium from the Paul Sacher Foundation to visit their archive in Basel, Switzerland, this past August. While there, Mr. Levy researched sketches and drafts of electronic and early orchestral works of pioneering Hungarian composer György Ligeti housed in the archive. Mr. Levy hopes to incorporate findings into a dissertation (Ph.D. in Music Theory) investigating the connections between electronic and orchestral works, and ways in which Ligeti's work in the electronic music studio of the WDR influenced his later compositions.

Welcome two new Graduate Assistants to Special Collections in Performing Arts

Lori Fowser, starting her first year of work toward an MM in clarinet performance at UM, has joined SCPA as the Rose Marie Grentzer Performing Arts Education Graduate Assistant. Ms. Fowser holds a BM in clarinet performance from UM, a BS in physics from The College of New Jersey, and completed the coursework towards an MS in Physics from University of Massachusettes–Lowell. Her work is supported by the Rose Marie Grentzer Fund, established and endowed through the estate of University of Maryland's Chair of Music Education, 1958-1974.

Stephanie Schmitz, in her first year of work toward an MLS at UM, has joined SCPA as the Archival Assistant Graduate Assistant. She will be responsible for learning and assisting with all SCPA general operations, including collection management, public and technical services, and outreach. Ms. Schmitz holds a BM in clarinet performance from UM.

Dissertation research at MSPAL

One of the periodic highlights of archives work is assisting today’s rising scholars with dissertation projects. Several SCPA collections were utilized for dissertation research this past semester:

• Brian Amaral, of the University of Iowa, used materials from the Edwin Franko Goldman Collection of the American Bandmasters Association Research Center.

• John Seybert, of Indiana University, used materials from Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Archives and the North American Band Directors Coordinating Council Collection.

• Melak Diab, of the University of Maryland School of Music, extensively explored the Maryland Sheet Music Collection to support her research on the music of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

New Acquisitions!