Actors - have you come across Scottish dramatist O. H. Mavor?

Maybe not! But you'll have come across his other name - James Bridie. We have plenty of his plays in the Whittaker Library.  (Check the catalogue here).

During last year's Aye Write! writing festival, Glasgow University Library blogged about Osborne Henry Mavor, the Glasgow student, who became a doctor and playwright. 

You can read the blogposts here.

"The REF" - What's It All About?

"The REF" is the Research Assessment Framework - it determines the quality and ranking of research in all the UK's universities, conservatoires and art schools.

The results of the 2014 REF came out at 00.01 this morning, Thursday 18th December.  Since the last rating and ranking exercise was in 2008, it's a very big deal indeed.  If you hear people talking about it, you'll understand why they're so animated.  

What it means to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - click HERE.

Institutions are assessed on output, impact, and overall.  "GPA" means Grade Point Average.   Here is the link to the REF website:- 

http://www.ref.ac.uk/

And you can also consult Times Higher Education's Table of Excellence, HERE:-

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ref-2014-results-table-of-excellence/2017590.article

Do You Plan to visit the Whittaker Library During Winter Break?

Winter Break for the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

The Whittaker Library will close at 3pm on 23rd December and reopen at 8.45am on 5th January 2015 - the day the building reopens - when we will recommence normal opening hours, evenings included. 

Commencing today (12th December), the library Winter Break opening hours are 9-5 Monday to Friday.  

Exceptions

Additionally, we will only be open until 2.30 pm on Thursday 18^th  December and 3 pm on Tuesday 23^rd December.

Weekends

We’re not open on Saturdays until Saturday 10^th January, and our next special Sunday opening will be on 11^th January 2015.

Selected 2015 Sunday opening hours

11th January 2015

25th January 2015

19th April 2015

3rd May 2015

17th May 2015

12th July 2015

19th July 2015

Opening times do occasionally vary and if you are planning to make a journey to visit us it is advisable to call first.  If you're a student or member of staff at the Conservatoire, we have lots of web resources that you can use all year round.  Visit our library website HERE.

Early Career Music Librarian, UK or Republic of Ireland? £250 Prize for best Dissertation or Article!

Calling for submissions

E T Bryant Memorial Prize 

£250 awarded for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship

Details of this valuable award have  just gone live on the IAML(UK and Ireland) website.  If you're an early-career music librarian and have recently written a dissertation or significant paper on a music-librarianship related topic, you're strongly urged to enter your work for the E T Bryant Memorial Prize.  Similarly, if you know of any other recent librarianship students who completed such  work over the past five years, let them know about it!

Details are here:-  http://www.iaml.info/iaml-uk-irl/awards/bryant.html

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• The prize is awarded to a library and information science student or group of students, or to a librarian in their first five years in music librarianship, for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship.
• The prize is awarded for a significant contribution to the literature of music librarianship.
• The recipient(s) of the prize must be resident in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland during the year of entry
• Publication of the material during / within the previous five years does not preclude entry
• All entries must be submitted by the published closing date.

The prize will be presented each year to the winner at the Annual General Meeting of the IAML(UK & Irl) Branch, by representatives of IAML(UK & Irl) and The Music Libraries Trust.

A copy of the winning work will be retained in the IAML(UK & Irl) Library.

Hurry or You'll Miss the Deadline! Learning on Screen Awards

"Celebrating media production in learning, teaching and research since 2003", the awards are sponsored by the BUFVC - the British Universities Film and Video Council.

• Showcase your work
• Raise your profile
• Widen your audience 
• Network with industry and education

ENTER NOW:- Deadline: 1 December 2014.  Full details HERE.

Whittaker Library shares the latest E-Resources

Next week, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is holding a Learning and Teaching Conference for staff. The Whittaker Library's subject librarians are champing at the bit to share all the latest electronic resources with their academic colleagues at special sessions on Wednesday 17th September.
.

Dip Your Toe in the Water!

It’s good practice to set training sessions in context by giving attendees a chance to think about what’s coming up in the session, before the session actually takes place. So we're encouraging our colleagues to take a look at the Library's e-resources page.

In the music session, Catherine will be focusing on Alexander Street Press (Music Online Premium, or MOP) and Naxos; and Karen will be talking about JSTOR and RILM, with a brief mention of Oxford Music. Before the session, colleagues are encouraged to try searching for something that's bound to get results, like Mendelssohn, or Kodaly.

Meanwhile, Alan will be giving a simultaneous session for drama and dance specialists. The e-resources can all be found on the same page, whichever RCS department staff are attached to. 
.

Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage (click HERE)

This is a quick introductory session – hopefully we'll have our colleagues swimming in the cyber-sea of electronic resources before they know it!

Una Hunt Plays - The Wild Irish Girl and her Harp, Friday 25 July 2014

We've heard about an intriguing radio recital from Ireland.  It takes place this Friday evening, 25th July.

THE WILD IRISH GIRL AND HER HARP

… a portrait of Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan

 

on The Lyric Feature

 

25 July 2014               RTÉ Lyric fm            7-8pm             96-99fm

 

A portrait of the extraordinary celebrity cult figure - Sydney Owenson, later Lady Morgan, who penned the once-famous novel - The Wild Irish Girl (1806). In addition to her writing, she also enjoyed a flourishing career as a drawing-room singer and performer on the Royal Portable Irish harp built by John Egan. Sydney Owenson styled herself on Glorvina, the harp-playing princess from her novel, thereby initiating a fashion for her own brand of pseudo-Celtic dress, and she also composed some quite influential songs, a fact that is no longer recognised.

 

Music on the programme includes specially recorded world-premiere recordings of Owenson’s Hibernian Melodies performed by Laura Murphy, mezzo soprano and Una Hunt, piano, along with harp airs played by Boston-based Nancy Hurrell on John Egan’s harps. Contributors include Nancy Hurrell, Claire Connolly (Professor of Modern English, University College Cork) and Julie Donovan (George Washington University, Washington D.C.). Engineering by Ben Rawlins.

 

Presented and produced by Una Hunt.

 

A Heritage Music Production for RTÉ Lyric fm. This programme is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision Funding Scheme.

 

LISTEN BACK

The Wild Irish Girl can be heard live on the internet through the RTÉ lyric fm website and can be accessed at any time for a week after broadcast.  Just go to http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/features/ and click the 'LISTEN BACK' icon to hear the current feature. Thereafter, the programme is available on the Lyric fm Archive."

Scottish Journal of Performance: Vol.1 No.2 just published

Read on ....

Scottish Journal of Performance is published by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Conference: Understanding Scotland Musically

Updated pages for this forthcoming AHRC-funded conference can be found here:-

Understanding Scotland Musically

AHRC sponsored two-day conference, 20 - 21st October 2014, Research Beehive, Newcastle University.

Understanding Scotland Musically

With a keynote address from

Dr Gary West

'Understanding Scotland Musically: Do we? Can we?’

Euphonium and Tuba in Atlanta

Whittaker's in-tray contained an invitation today:-

2014 International Euphonium Tuba Festival

at Emory University in Atlanta, USA

 

22-28 June 2014

The invitation comes rather late for our readers to book attendance, but we wish the Festival a happy and fulfilling week all the same.

More information can be found at Euphonium.com - if you play Euphonium or Tuba, maybe you'd like to save this link to your favourites.

Period Dancing: Edinburgh Quadrilles, Sunday 1 June 2014

Further information - click here.

Edinburgh Baroque Weekend 31 May - 1 June 2014

Scottish Journal of Performance - CFP

Reminder: CALL FOR PAPERS: Scottish Journal of Performance (Volume 2, Issue 1)

"The Scottish Journal of Performance is a peer-reviewed open access journal focusing both on performance in Scotland (contemporary and historical) and / or wider aspects of performance presented by scholars and reflective practitioners based in Scotland. We invite contributions from a wide and diverse community of researchers, providing opportunities for both established and early career scholars to submit work. We encourage a wide range of research methods and approaches, including practice-led research and practice as research. Possible submission formats include audio and video recordings with commentary, practitioner reports, reflective journals and scholarly articles."

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Deadline for submissions: 27 June 2014
Publication date: December 2014

Please see the SJoP website (http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/) for further details and the full Call for Papers.

Music on Stage: Conference Call (Rose Bruford College, 18-19 October 2014)

Researchers interested in opera, music, film, the musical, and their performance, may find this conference call interesting:-

 

5^th International “Music on Stage” conference

Rose Bruford College, Sidcup, Kent

October 18-19^th 

Conference fee £100

Keynote speakers: Professor Nicholas Till (Sussex) and Mary King (international mezzo-soprano and Honorary Fellow Rose Bruford College)

Abstracts of 200 words should be sent to Dr F Jane Schopf – Fiona.schopf@bruford.ac.uk  

Streams: Opera, Opera and film, the Musical, performance.

Papers will be published (subject to peer review) by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.