"The Beethoven Project is a large-scale celebration acknowledging Bing Concert Hall as the new home of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra. These ensembles, under the baton of Jindong Cai, will devote the season to the performance of all nine Beethoven symphonies, as well as all five of the composer’s piano concerti featuring Van Cliburn Gold Medal–winning pianist and Stanford alumnus Jon Nakamatsu.
Did you read the news a few months ago about the Riverwalk Jazz archive coming to Stanford? Now the collection of radio shows is available online, featuring two channels of continuous audio streams: http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/.
As fans of the long-running public radio program know, Riverwalk Jazz tells the story of early jazz and blues as it evolved in the first half of the 20th century. Using rich narrative, oral histories and interviews, clips of historic musical recordings, and live musical performances by the Jim Cullum Jazz Band, each radio show entertains and educates its listeners, promoting classic jazz music and an appreciation for its place in history. With this new web site, the series of programs is presented by the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound as an incomparable research collection for use by jazz scholars and fans alike.
From the home page, choose one of two channels available, click play, and like a radio webcast, hear the streaming radio program underway. Each channel runs a unique sequence of 352 shows in an ongoing loop, including some of the earliest shows which have not been heard in over 20 years. The arrangement is thematic, covering topics such as women in jazz, spirituals, hymns & the blues, civil rights, and hot spots like New Orleans, Chicago, Harlem, San Francisco, and of course Texas. Many programs focus on the lives and works of musicians, singers, and composers such as Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, George and Ira Gershwin, and Cole Porter among many more.
Sidebar: The radio webcast approach to providing access to archival sound recordings is new at Stanford Libraries. For years, we have been providing on-demand streaming access to media collections, like Buckminster Fuller, Lynn Hershman’s !Women Art Revolution, and David Hamburg’s Preventing Genocide. With Riverwalk Jazz, for the first time Stanford Libraries is presenting audio content from its collections like a licensed radio station. We are excited to consider how to extend this delivery model for more collections of audio and video material!
The Riverwalk Jazz audio programs are supplemented on the web site with illustrated program notes, photo galleries, additional audio content, and detailed information about the Jim Cullum Jazz Band players, their show guests, and the nearly 1300 songs they perform together.
And the Riverwalk Jazz collection doesn’t stop there. This finding aid describes the large archive of tape recordings, scripts and production files, business records, and other documents preserved at the Archive of Recorded Sound.
The collection is the latest addition to the Archive's jazz holdings; Riverwalk joins the likes of the Monterey Jazz Festival collection, the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation, the Ken Ackerman Collection, not to mention Jim Cullum’s personal archive.
The Riverwalk Jazz collection project is a collaboration between the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound and the Stanford Media Preservation Lab along with PVP Media and Propeople. We'll be adding new content to the site in early 2013, so if the non-stop audio weren't enough, there are plenty of reasons to keep coming back to the Riverwalk web site at Stanford.
Did you know that all seven streaming audio databases offer selections of Christmas music that you can stream to your home or work computer, or your smartphone? Just search “Christmas” in each database to start browsing.
Access is restricted to Stanford users.
See this page about connecting from off-campus and this page about streaming to your mobile device.
Some suggestions:
American Song
Classical Music Library
A Piano Christmas in the 1920s
Christmas With the University of Texas at Austin Trombone Choir
Contemporary World Music
Rituals and Celebrations of the World
DRAM
Gordon Green, Impossible Christmas
Jazz Music Library
Playboy’s Latin Jazz Christmas : a Not So Silent Night
Prestige : the Christmas Collection
Smithsonian Global Sound
Naxos Music Library
Naxos Jazz
Vince Guaraldi Trio, A Charlie Brown Christmas
Anita Baker, Christmas Fantasy
The Music Library media study room is now open. The room contains a study table and seating for up to five people. Audiovisual equipment includes a color video monitor and components to play all-region DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS, LaserDisc, LP, and CD formats. Connector cables will soon be available to allow projection from PC and Mac laptops.
Use guidelines:
- Available on a first-come basis; keys not required
- Priority use goes to patrons needing the playback equipment
- Groups of two or more take priority over single-person use
- Please observe a two-hour limit when others are waiting
- Food and drinks are not allowed
The room may be reserved in advance; please contact Ray Heigemeir to make arrangements. We do not yet have an automated reservation system; this may be developed in response to demand.
Attention, music lovers! Did you know that thousands of classical and jazz albums can be streamed to your mobile device at work, home, or on the go? Apps for iPhone/iPad and Android are available for the Naxos Music Library and Naxos Jazz streaming audio databases. Follow the instructions below; your Stanford email address is required.
1. Open the Naxos Music Library (or Naxos Jazz) site on your desktop computer, using the link on this Music Library page: http://library.stanford.edu/music/streaming-media
2. Go to the playlists page -- the tab is one among many in the row near the top of your screen. You can create playlists on your desktop that you can access and share on your mobile device.
3. Click on "sign up" in the right top corner and follow the instructions. You must use your Stanford email, along with a password of your choice.
4. Install the app on your mobile device. iPad users please note: look for the app under the iPhone tab. This single app works on both devices.
5. Enter you user name (your email) and password in the sign in box. Log in just once; your settings will be saved.
6. Search the catalog. Explore new music. Enjoy!
Richard Bonelli (1889-1980), an internationally-known baritone and noted voice teacher, performed frequently in San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s. The Richard Bonelli Collection, consisting of letters, photographs, programs, scores, scrapbooks, and other material, is available to researchers at the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound. Additionally, a number of commercial recordings featuring Bonelli may be consulted in the Archive, and several CD reissues may be borrowed from the Music Library.
In 2002, a grant from the National Film Preservation Board allowed for the digital preservation of two rare moving image compilations, filmed by Richard Bonelli's wife, Mona. The San Francisco Opera footage captures some of the first offerings of the Opera at the War Memorial Opera House, which opened in 1932. Footage includes performances, dress rehearsals, and backstage activities. The Metropolitan Opera footage was taken during the world premiere of Howard Hanson's only opera, Merry Mount, in February, 1934.
Appearing in the films are other great singers of the day, including Helen Gahagen, Beniamino Gigli, Claudia Muzio, Ezio Pinza, Elisabeth Rethberg, Tito Schipa, and Lawrence Tibbett (the featured performer in Merry Mount).
We are pleased to make these films available to the public through our website. Many thanks to the Stanford Media Preservation Lab staff for their expert assistance in preparing the films for the web.
View the Richard Bonelli films here.
Rock’s Backpages is one of two new subscription databases now available for use by the Stanford community (Academic Charts Online will be highlighted in a future post).
From the website:
"There are over twenty thousand articles on the site. These feature over two thousand five hundred artists and range from 500-word album (or concert) reviews to 10,000-word interviews and features.
The articles are full text and fully searchable (by artist, date, genre, keyword etc.) including a sophisticated ‘advanced search’ option.
Written by over five hundred of the biggest names in rock journalism, they are taken from the widest possible range of publications in the US and UK: from Creem and Trouser Press to Rolling Stone, and from New Musical Express and Melody Maker to MOJO.
The archive covers all types of popular music from the 1950s to the present: from Abba to Zappa, the Stones to the Stone Roses and from Elvis to Eminem. There are, for example, 160 articles on the Beach Boys and 220 on the Rolling Stones.
The library includes previously unpublished pieces about The Beatles (by Michael Lydon in 1966), The Doors (by Lester Bangs in 1975), and seminal interviews with major artists from Bob Dylan to Radiohead."
The library is currently increasing in size by approximately 50 new articles a week.
In addition, you may stream audio interviews of artists including Rick Danko, David Bowie, T-Bone Burnett, Donovan, Green Day, Joni Mitchell, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, Lou Reed, Grace Slick, Tom Waits, and ZZ Top (and many more).
Subscribe to the weekly newsletter to learn about the latest content.
The Archive of Recorded Sound has completed the processing of four significant collections under the sponsorship of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation which are now ready for use by researchers, students, musicians, and the public. The creators of all four collections have California connections, but their work and influence extended far beyond state borders to distant regions of the world. The four collections that have been organized, arranged, and described in finding aids, which can be viewed on the Online Archive of California, are the Yehudi Menuhin, the Jascha Heifetz, the Lawrence Tibbett, and the Ambassador Auditorium Collections. The processing archivist for the project was Frank Ferko, with assistance from Anna Graves.
Located in the City of Pasadena, the Ambassador Auditorium hosted many of the most highly regarded concert musicians and popular entertainers in the world. From its opening night on April 7, 1974 to its closing in May, 1995, the Ambassador, often called "the Carnegie Hall of the West", presented a veritable who's who of luminaries in the world of music, dance, and popular entertainment. Among those who performed there were Artur Rubinstein, Leontyne Price, Victor Borge, Andres Segovia, Barbara Cook, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Yo-Yo Ma, Bob Hope, Marcel Marceau, Claire Bloom, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Ravi Shankar, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and many others. The Ambassador Auditorium Collection consists of thousands of documents related to the business, marketing, publicity and promotion operations of the hall as well as photographs (many of which are autographed), posters, concert programs, commissioned original artwork, and perhaps most important of all, hundreds of audio and video recordings of live performances.
Spanning 75 years, the career of Yehudi Menuhin included work as a virtuoso violinist as well as a highly respected conductor. The Yehudi Menuhin Collection, assembled by his family, consists of fifty-four 78 rpm recordings from 1938 through 1950 of Menuhin performing violin works, often accompanied by his sister, Hephzibah.
The Jascha Heifetz Collection, donated by the violinist's longtime friend and record producer at RCA Victor, Jack Pfeiffer, includes not only Heifetz's own performances but also his personal collection of recordings made by other artists. The Heifetz Collection, consisting of over a thousand discs and reels produced from 1911-1972, includes the rare, privately made recording from 1920 of Heifetz's teacher, Leopold Auer, among other treasures.
The Lawrence Tibbett Collection, consisting of 98 records documenting the middle years of the baritone's career, who sang for 27 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera (1923-1950). The collection contains an outstanding performance of a pre-premiere recording of Howard Hanson's Merry Mount, from January 1934 and also contains Tibbett's well known renditions of popular songs, such as Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oh, what a beautiful mornin," and Harold Arlen's "Accentuate the positive", performed on live radio programs in the 1940s.
For more information and to use the collections, contact the Stanford University Archive of Recorded Sound.
