Molière en Couleurs - Fabulous Exhibition at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

 
Exhibition: Molière en couleurs

Our Drama Librarian, Alan Jones, has arranged a fabulous exhibition of costume design paintings, with the support of Alliance Francaise de Glasgow and Bibliothèque de la Comédie-Française.  Charles Bétout drawings are now collected all over the world, and will be yours to admire in the Cafe/Bar from 31st October to 20th November.

The exhibition was opened by Bailie Liz Cameron, who was introduced by Hugh Hodgart; representatives from the Alliance Francaise de Glasgow also attended.  Our many guests unanimously agreed that the works are exquisitely drawn.

Costume and scenic design are two essential components of performance art. Operas, operettas, stage plays, ballets, and films all rely on design to create worlds that inspire the imagination.

From the library of the Comédie-Française (the oldest western theatre company in the world) to the Cafe/Bar of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland come the works of Charles Bétout.

Charles Bétout was a costume designer for the opera for various theatres in France, for fashion magazines and movies. He was the main costume designer of the Comédie-Française between 1919 to 1939.

As part of the Molière en couleurs (Molière in colour) exhibition, 22 of Bétout's watercolour costume designs for plays by Molière will be on display at the Conservatoire.

His drawings are particularly valuable for their intricacy and accuracy of the historical details. He has captured the very essence of Molière’s time in his work. 

The Guardian Culture Professionals Network seeks career tips

Whittaker can't help sharing this one!  If you have tips about careers in the arts and culture, there's a chance to share it with the Guardian Culture Professionals Network - here.  The network is a great way to keep in touch with what's happening in the sector.  Who knows, your tips about getting started in music, drama or ballet might end up on the website.

Culture careers - share your tips

Library Camp: not a Teddy Bears' Picnic!

Karen went to an "unconference" on Saturday - Scotland's first library camp. 

Curious?  Here's what caught the attention of several dozen Scottish librarians:- http://gltweeps.wordpress.com/library-camp-glasgow/ - and here's the blog about it.  There was also a Storify assemblage collating delegates' impressions of the whole event.

Creativity in libraries was one subject that came up, courtesy of Delphine Dallison at Glasgow School of Art. This prompted Karen to indulge in a bit of reflective writing of her own.  You can read it here, on her Airs and Graces CPD blog.

Being off-duty librarians, we had a couple of competitions - one was to make one's own badge.  The results were quite something, so the organisers made a collage to show you - here. 

Clog Dancing - Let the Sparks Fly!

We just thought you'd be interested to learn that we now have some new DVDs and CDs by Alex Fisher, grand dame of the clog dancing universe - and Eccleston Heritage Clog.

Take a look, here.  (And if you catch 'Whittaker' clog dancing, don't tell anyone ...)

The Lads Like Beer (Book and CD Review)

The Lads Like Beer: the Fiddle Music of James Hill's Tyneside

by Graham Dixon (2nd edition)

There are times in a librarian's day when they take a deep breath, smother a sigh, and try to pretend that they really, really enjoy cataloguing piles of books.  Amidst today's pile, the bright orange cover of Graham Dixon's The Lads Like Beer and its accompanying CD offered a diverting break from the classical and jazz repertoire on the desk in front of me.  And it blew my breath away.

A closer look (purely in the interests of establishing correct name and subject authority headings) revealed a fascinating book, with an extensive preface about fiddle music and fiddling styles in nineteenth century Newcastle upon Tyne, followed by a collection of the fiddle tunes written by James Hill, who originated from Scotland but spent his adult years on Tyneside.  Did you know there was a 'Newcastle Style' of bowing hornpipes?  (If you want to know more, you also need to read an old fiddle tutor by W. C. Honeyman - The Strathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor.  We have it in the Whittaker Library.  Just ask at the desk!)



Learning On Screen Awards 2014

Learning On Screen Awards 2014
 
From the BUFVC website:-

"The Learning on Screen Awards are the only UK awards celebrating and rewarding excellence in the use of moving image and related media in learning, teaching and research.

The Awards are open to broadcasters, production companies, education institutions, museums, publishers, charities, libraries, students and any other organisation or individual producing educational media.

Entries can be made into a variety of categories, including broadcast programmes, non-broadcast delivery, multimedia content and student productions. This year the award categories have been revised and updated to reflect the growing innovations in delivery methods and production... (Read on) 

The BUFVC is the British Universities Film and Video Council.

Web Design for Your Business

The very helpful Business Gateway (business expertise for Scottish businesses) shares with us this useful web-page.  It could be just what the young entrepreneur is looking for:-

Web Design: Best Practice

Sourcing old Scottish Songs - Petrucci Music Library

Beethoven and Haydn both arranged large quantities of Scottish songs for the publisher George Thomson.  Maybe you're looking for classical settings for solo, duet or even vocal trio for an encore in a recital - these could be suitable choices.

How to find old editions online, though?  Unless you want to buy a very expensive rare edition, IMSLP (The Petrucci Music Library) may be your best port of call. 

 IMSLP and Petrucci are the same website.  They describe themselves this way:- "IMSLP stands for International Music Score Library Project. The logo is a capital letter A, taken from the very first press-printed book of polyphonic music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, published in 1501. Its printer, Ottaviano Petrucci, is this library's namesake."

Here are a few examples of what you'll find:-

• Beethoven - Some of these havemore than one singer
• Beethoven – three singers
Tchaikovsky – Scottish ballad

• Try Soprano Baritone Scottish

(Just another helpful blogpost from your friends at the Whittaker Library, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland!)

Scottish Ensemble Residencies

This might interest some of our music students.  It's a blogpost by Morag Robertson, a recent Scottish Ensemble Young Artist.

Scottish Ensemble Residencies blog - click here.

Death of Poet Lillias Scott Forbes

Followers of this blog will recall that Lillias Scott Forbes was to have appeared at an evening poetry reading in her honour, at the Whittaker Library in June this year.  Sadly, indisposition prevented her appearance, but the audience still heard some of her poems, as well as music by her husband Erik Chisholm and father Francis George Scott, and poetry by Tom Hubbard.

It is with sadness that Whittaker Live notes the recent passing of Lillias Scott Forbes in St Andrews on 2nd October 2013.  The announcement appeared in The Scotsman. on 5th October, and the funeral took place on Friday 11th October. 

Lillias was reportedly delighted that her poetry was given a public reading at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and it is lovely that the event jointly planned with Dr Margaret Bennett gave an old lady such pleasure, even if she was unable to attend in person.

Elevator Pitch - Promoting the Whittaker Library

A Very Brief Powerpoint!

How do you promote a library in three minutes?  Karen was up for the challenge, today.  After the Freshers' Week round of library introductions telling students what the library has to offer, this week it was time to share what the library can offer to academic staff.

Here's her Elevator Pitch for The Whittaker Library, devised for a meeting of part-time teachers and lecturers.

Masters of Piobaireachd (Pibroch, to Sassenachs)

The Whittaker Library now has the whole 10-CD Greentrax set of this highly-regarded series by Robert B. Nicol and Robert U. Brown.  Take a look here.

Creative Productivity: When Less Really = More

This video was sent to me in an email yesterday -it's about creative productivity, and giving our brain a break to allow time for inspiration to seep in.  The presenter is Morgan Giddings,  a neuro-scientist with a company dedicated to creative productivity.

It's good.  It takes as long as a slow breakfast to watch it.  Recommended!

Have your cake and eat it too: what brain science tells us about productivity (the 105 hour lie)

Now, please excuse me - I'm off to take a break!  Less equals more ... less twirling, more creative productivity.

When Boston Brass Came to Play

http://www.bostonbrass.com/

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland welcomes Boston Brass today - we've just had a fantastic lunchtime concert, and next there's going to be a masterclass with some of our best student ensembles.

Has the Whittaker Library got recordings of this epic group?  Of course we have!  Click here to see what we've got.

We also have a large stock of brass quintet music.  Remember the instrumentation index?  Search like this:-

"Trumpet2, horn1, trombone1, tuba1"

Don't forget the inverted commas - they tell the catalogue search engine how to search.  Results here.

 

 

And did you like the Stanton Moore piece, Blues for Ben, arranged by Pilafian?  Boston Brass first heard it played by Bonerama - a trombone and rhythm ensemble.  Find out more about that group here.  What a great piece!  Andrew Hitz was positively virtuosic on tuba in the Boston Brass rendition!

Virtual Rehearsals by Skype? Can it work? Culture Guardian article

In the Guardian's Culture Professionals Network today:-

Virtual theatre rehearsal: when Skype saved the day (and play)

Academics and Researchers as Creative Writers - Motivational Blog

Academic Ladder is a USA-based support network for people engaged in scholarly writing, be it a thesis, article or book.* 

Here is an article about scholars as creative writers.  It was recently posted on the Academic Ladder website, and you can access it for free:- You, a Creative Writer? Four Techniques to Help ANY Academic get Published


*'Whittaker' has tried and liked this network - it's particularly valuable in alleviating the isolation that part-time or lone researchers sometimes experience.

AHRC gets Passionate about Performance - Take a Look!

Passionate about Performance

Our friends up the road at Glasgow School of Art have kindly alerted us to this AHRC-funded project, the report of which was released on 1st October 2013.

 

There's a film to see on YouTube, too.

 

Take a look!

 

The results are being disseminated in a short new film, “Passionate about Performance,” which is released online today. Watch the film via the AHRC’s YouTube channel (opens in new window).

AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice

 

Old Scottish Music Online (visit a Digital Gallery)

Another of the great offerings by the National Library of Scotland.  The 'Digital Gallery' is the name for a wide range of different digital collections.  Of course, one of the great things about digital collections is that they're accessible online, so although going to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh is a great experience, you can still access all this wonderful stuff from your own online device.

The one of overwhelming interest to Scottish musicians is their Special Collections of Printed Music

Two big collections of old sheet music have been professionally digitized.  One collection belonged to Scottish music collector John Glen, and the other to Alexander Wood Inglis.  There are hundreds of digitized scores of traditional music repertoire. 

This is more than worth a look - it's essential reading!

Scottish Music Publishers - Who Did What, When?

Anyone studying the history of Scottish music will at some stage need to find out who published what, and when. 

There is a vast amount of information out there!  The National Library of Scotland contains many priceless original music books, but they also actively curate and compile useful indexes to help you find accurate historical information.

The Scottish Book Trade Index is online, and includes music publishers as well as the people who published books:-

http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/scottish-book-trade-index

Watch this space for more helpful suggestions of ways to find out more about Scottish music.