Focus on Theatre Design : Oliver Messel

Oliver Messel (13 January 1904 – 13 July 1978) was an English artist and one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century. He started his artistic life as a portrait painter and commissions for theatre work soon followed, beginning with his designing the masks for a London production of Serge Diaghilev's ballet Zephyr et Flore (1925). Subsequently, he created masks, costumes, and sets – many of which have been preserved by the V and A Performing Arts Department.

His work as a set designer was also featured in the USA in such Broadway shows as The Country Wife (1936); The Lady's Not For Burning (1950); Romeo and Juliet (1951); House of Flowers (1954), for which he won the Tony Award; and Rashomon (1959), which was nominated for a Tony Award for his costume as well as his set design. He also designed the costumes for Romeo and Juliet; Rashomon; and Gigi (1973), the latter two receiving Tony Award nominations.
 
For film his costume designs include The Private Life of Don Juan (1934); Scarlet Pimpernel (1934); Romeo and Juliet (1936); The Thief of Bagdad (1940); and Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). For Romeo and Juliet he also served as Set Decorator. He was Art Director on Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), On Such a Night (1956) and Production Designer on Suddenly Last Summer (1959), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award.

The library/ Theatre Collection of the University of Bristol acquired his personal archive in 2015 and through project funding have digitised and made accessible a great deal of his documents, which tell a fascinating tale not simply of an artist but also a passionate man, who was well ahead of his time in terms of social concerns and cultural aesthetics.

Click here to visit the Oliver Messel archive online at the University of Bristol

Click here for Oliver Messel exhibition website at University of Bristol

Click here to visit the Oliver Messel pages of the V and A website

Can't I Just Photocopy the Part? Music Copyright Can and Can't Do's in the UK

Copyright guidelines courtesy of CILIP

So you've lost your viola part?  That could be a problem! You cannot just copy another one from the score without the publisher's permission.

Our professional association, IAML (UK and Ireland), has a very helpful web page telling you what is, and is not permissable in the British and Irish world of music copyright.  

Read all the do's and don'ts here:- UK Copyright FAQs, courtesy of IAML (UK and Ireland).

Also, do refer to the general guidelines produced by another professional organisation, CILIP:-

• International Association of Music Libraries, UK and Ireland Branch 
• Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

Want to Know about Music Copyright?

If you're part of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland staff and student community, the Whittaker Library offers a copyright page on Mahara - you'll need to login to visit this site. 

There's also a great page of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on the IAML(UK and Ireland) website.  (It's the professional association for music libraries, so you can trust the information you find there!)

What categories of work are protected by copyright?  Visit the FAQs!
What is the public domain?  We have the answer to that, too!

And where do you go for the answers to all your questions?  

• Useful Copyright Resources 
• Copyright FAQs for the UK 

IAML (UK and Ireland) homepage: http://uk-irl.iaml.info/index.html

Copyright - what you can (and can't) do after 1 June 2014

There are changes to UK Copyright law which come into effect on 1 June 2014.  Here in the Whittaker Library, we are carefully reading up the details.  Impacting on several important aspects of performances, including research, education, disability, and libraries, you can understand our need to get a grasp of these changes!  Here is the introduction on the Intellectual Property Office website:-

Changes to copyright law and guidance

Changes to copyright law

"The government is making a series of small but important changes to copyright law to make it better suited for the digital age. These changes will affect how you can use content like books, music, films and photographs. They will also introduce greater freedoms in copyright law to allow third parties to use copyright works for a variety of economically and/or socially valuable purposes without the need to seek permission from copyright owners. Protections for the interests of copyright owners and creators are built in to the proposed changes.
"The government is committed to achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is shared across the country and between industries. These changes are the result of extensive consultation with all interested parties. They will come into force on 1 June 2014."

(Intellectual Property Office ... Changes to copyright law and guidance - http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-copyright/hargreaves-copyright-techreview.htm accessed 18.04.2014)

In the UK, copyright law is changed by "Statutory Instruments". The forthcoming changes are made in five such statutory instruments. They affect performances in the following areas:- 

• Personal copies for private use
• Quotation and parody
• Disability
• Research, education, libraries and archives
• Administration

There are three IPO (Intellectual Property Office) online leaflets about educational, library and disability-related exceptions to the copyright legislation, which are very useful for us to know.  They're available in .pdf format:-

• Exceptions to copyright - Education and teaching 
• Exceptions to copyright - Libraries, archives and museums
• Exceptions to copyright - Accessible formats for disabled people
• NB - Accessible format copies can be made where no accessible format copy is 'commercially available on reasonable terms'.  

For a summary of all the changes, general readers are directed to this explanatory document.  In legal-speak, it's called an 'Explanatory Memorandum', so if anyone asks you where you read about this, then you would cite this:-

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE COPYRIGHT AND RIGHTS IN PERFORMANCES ... AND ADMINISTRATION REGULATIONS 2014

Sibelius software - UK business news

If you are a musician using Sibelius music software, this news will be alarming.  Whittaker is not going to indulge in scaremongering, but you may wish to read this blogpost from Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc blog:-

At Sibelius Software, the last Staff turn out the Lights