We mentioned back in June that RCS alumna Rachel Hair had been working on the Isle of Man, and had given us some Manx CDs and music.
Well, we catalogued some of it straight away, and now we've finished the lot. Some years ago, the Manx Heritage Foundation rebranded as Culture Vannin, and the trust (whether you know it by its old or its new name!) is to be congratulated on promoting Manx traditional music so enthusiastically.
We have a new CD in stock - Ethel Smyth's, The Boatswain's Mate.
The first complete recording is released by Retrospect Opera, and Cuban conductor Odaline de la Martinez conducts the Lontano Ensemble.
Smyth lived from 1858-1944. The opera is a comedy in one act and two parts. As well as a modern recording, there are also excerpts recorded in 1916, and additionally, the overture to The Wreckers, recorded in 1930 and conducted by Ethel Smyth herself.
Don't underestimate the power of those early 20th century ladies!
*Boatswain is pronounced, and sometimes spelled, Bosun. We made sure you could find it either way in the Whittaker Library Catalogue. Here.
Have you come across Rebecca Clarke? The Bibliolore blog's latest posting is about this significant early 20th century composer. Female composers have never really attracted as much attention as the men, so applause to Bibliolore for highlighting Ms Clarke:-
"When Rebecca Clarke studied
composition at the Royal College of Music she was Charles Villiers Stanford’s
only female student ..." Read more here.
Bibliolore blog is the creation of RILM - the people who index music literature abstracts.
We are the ever-helpful Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to assist our community of performers, composers, dancers and producers with their information needs.
Do you like what you find? This is one of the longest-running of library blogs - we do our best to share information that we think will interest our creative community of performers, actors, dancers, production artists and film/TV producers.
We generally prefer short, informative posts. We like to share links with you, and we know that a picture tells more than a thousand words!
Please do tell us if we're on the right track!
OUT NOW - ON COSTUME CUTTING - MICHAL SHYNE
Today DTP release their interview with Michal Shyne, Costume Cutter at Theatr Clwyd. Michal discusses what initially drew her into the world of theatre costume and how a cutter negotiates between period, design, fabric, performance requirements and actors' tastes. Explore Cast and Creative Interviews
AND NOW AVAILABLE - BBC COLLECTION - SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED
This week DTP released a further list of titles as part of their partnership with BBC Active, expanding the list of curriculum-mapped texts and insights available on Digital Theatre+.
Along with expanding their collection Shakespeare's Histories ever further, they now proudly release the full first season of the BBC's Shakespeare Uncovered series, in which theatrical heavyweights, including Sir Trevor Nunn, Joely Richardson and Jeremy Irons, share insights and enquiries into their favourite plays. Explore the BBC Collection.
Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland can ask at the library for login instructions.
We're the friendly, helpful Whittaker Library, here to help our performers and creatives with their literature, music and other information needs.
Today we received a CD of music by Emily Howard - Magnetite. There's orchestral, vocal and string quartet repertoire from this innovative composer. The CD was supported by the Trust, who tell us that Emily has a rare ability to combine musical ideas with extra-musical interests including science, mathematics, philosophy and sport. The CD was favourably reviewed on Radio 3's Record Review recently.
It is a lovely addition to stock, and also gives us the opportunity to tell you about this worthy charitable trust.
Take a look:- www.ambachecharitabletrust.org
- Magnetite (the most recent donation), a CD of Emily Howard's music
- A Triple
Portrait: Chamber music by Elena Firsova, played by the Marsyas Trio.
Soviet composer Elena Firsova has composed 150+ pieces, yet is little
known in the UK.
A rare and wonderful thing happened today - the music librarian was let loose in the Wardrobe Department. In 28 years, this was a first. (To be fair, she never asked before!) We needed a dummy, you see, and a Regency gown - to enhance our display of costume-making books. Do take a look - this is just a tiny selection from the attractive and informative costume books from the Whittaker Library, and we hope they'll appeal to some of our new students who'll be arriving in just a few weeks' time.
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is on two sites in Glasgow, the original one in Renfrew Street, and the other at Speirs Locks in Garscube Road. Our Library is in Renfrew Street, but we hope our costume and production students will find time to come and see what we've got, because the drama librarians have gathered these materials together over many years, and there's something for everyone- from beginner dressmakers, to would-be Sewing Bees. We also have a weekly book-fetching service on Fridays, so staff and students can request books to be delivered to Speirs Locks.
The BBC consulted Royal Conservatoire of Scotland researcher Andrew Bova for more information about this rare, but very real condition - bagpipe lung.
(Now, please do go and clean your bagpipes out!)
To be or not to Sewing Bee
You won't be surprised that we teach costume design as part of our production portfolio here at RCS. So it goes without saying that our drama librarians have built up an amazing collection of books to help our wardrobe staff and students. Collection development is a key part of their remit.
We decided it would be a great idea to show you what our drama colleagues have put together over the years, to inspire and inform the people who dress our actors.
Watch this space! The books are waiting but we haven't got hold of a dummy yet. Maybe later this week?
We do like our book displays! Empty, now, and waiting for the new one ....
One of our librarians has been doing research into some old music at the University of St Andrews. Here is a blogpost she has recently written:-
Claimed From Stationers' Hall
Blogpost by Karen E McAulay
- There are a couple of talks coming up - details on the blogpost.
We thought this book would be interesting to our creative community, so we got it for the Whittaker Library here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Find it here in our catalogue.
You can also read Darren's blogpost about the book, here.
"'This book contains my personal reflections on England's arts and cultural landscape in 2016, one year on from my appointment as the chief executive of Arts Council England.' - Author, preface."
The Whittaker Library was honoured to be the recipient of the late David Nicholson's flute music, and we've been steadily adding it to our stock over the past couple of years. We are nearly at the end of the process now, and we can safely say that our collection of flute music must now surely be second to none. The last few items will be added over the next fortnight.
All David Nicholson's music has been tagged as "David Nicholson bequest" in the catalogue, so it is easy to see what's there. Take a look at our catalogue ...
Remember, you can search for all our music for any particular combination by using our instrumentation index. Visit the catalogue, and input, for example ...
- Flute1, piano
- Flute2, piano
- Flute1, violin1, piano
- Flute1, oboe1, clarinet1, bassoon1, horn1
Catalogue home page:- http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/rcs/
Update!
'Blending Librarianship with Research and Pedagogy' - article by Karen McAulay for SCONUL Focus 69, July 2017 (56-59) - read it here.
-----
Here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, we the Whittaker Library staff offer our services to help our students get the most out of our library and electronic resources. This help can take a variety of forms!
- We
can talk about the catalogue;
- Give an overview of particular electronic
resources;
- Explain how to access e-books and e-journals;
- Give advice on
referencing;
- Tell students about RefMe, a quick and easy way of
saving bibliographic details for an assignment.
- We can give an overview
suited to particular classes, whether new undergraduates or more
advanced students wanting to research information for their reflective
journal.
- Or we can introduce some of our historical resources, if
colleagues are teaching something that would be enhanced by them.
We're
happy to appear at the beginning or near the end of a lecture or
seminar - small chunks of information can be more palatable than a long
spiel. Obviously, we can't arrange any collaborative learning
activities in the context of a lecture theatre, but we're very amenable
to discussion as to how best to engage our students in other settings,
if this would help.
"Relevant and Timely" is our motto, so
we urge our colleagues to get in touch so we can organise our calendars
accordingly
Music and Memory
Are you involved in community music ventures, or music therapy? Here's an interesting article from Maine, USA, about a program using music therapy to reduce the amount of anti-psychotic drugs taken by dementia sufferers. This comes fresh from the Bangor Daily News, Maine. Read on ...
We spotted this in The Stage today. It will be of interest to our BSL actors, but it should, actually, be of interest and concern to everyone! Take a look ...
"Jenny Sealey is the artistic director of Graeae, an inclusive company committed to accessible theatre." (29.07.2016)
Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland have more new electronic content available from Digital Theatre Plus - this time from the BBC Archives!
If you're part of the RCS community, login is automatic from within campus buildings, but please ask at the Library for details of how to access off-site.
"Kicking off our partnership with BBCActive, Digital Theatre+ is proud to present the first batch of archived BBC productions.
Subscribers to DigitalTheatre+ can access a canonical collection of works including Cymbeline, starring a young Helen Mirren, see Fiona Shaw tackling the iconic title role in Ibsen's classic Hedda Gabler and enjoy John Webster's masterpiece The Duchess of Malfi."
Ethical Writing
Students in higher education sometimes ask what exactly plagiarism is. It's using someone else's words as your own, without saying where you got them from.
In the recent USA presidential elections, much has been made of a speech apparently plagiarised from one made years ago by Michelle Obama. Look at the above definition of plagiarism. Play the YouTube clips. Look at the definition again.
This is how it was reported in the Guardian.
Ask in the library if you'd like help with referencing in your written work. There is nothing wrong with quoting an authority - you just need to cite their words properly. (Preferably most of your writing is about what you think, so don't fill up your word allowance with too many quotes - only use quotes from other people to reinforce your arguments.)
Plagiarism is copying without citing. It's not cool!
Creative Scotland has released an Update on Regular Funding. This will be for funding 2018-2021. It's a question of waiting for further announcements, but do bookmark this link!
The update begins:-
"We are currently still aiming to open the next round of our Regular Funding Programme for applications in Autumn 2016, with a submission deadline in late Spring 2017 and funding decisions in Autumn 2017 ..." more ...
There is also a page with Current Opportunities, which is worth a look, too.
We mentioned back in June that RCS alumna Rachel Hair had been working on the Isle of Man, and had given us some Manx CDs and music.
Well, we catalogued some of it straight away, and now we've finished the lot. Some years ago, the Manx Heritage Foundation rebranded as Culture Vannin, and the trust (whether you know it by its old or its new name!) is to be congratulated on promoting Manx traditional music so enthusiastically.
