Pianists, an unknown Mozart autograph has been discovered!

Sonata in A major, K. 331

(best known for its ‘alla turca’ finale)

Read about the event to celebrate this discovery - in Budapest.  CLICK HERE.

What's more, our professional association found this published online in the New York Times: CLICK HERE.

Lost Voices - New Renaissance Choral Music Project Goes Live

Here's a new link for scholars of Renaissance choral music.  Not just scholars - singers as well!  So this might be interesting to people who sing in a choir, too.  We have permission from Professor Richard Freedman to share a summary of his announcement here. 

http://digitalduchemin.org

Image from the Lost Voices project

 

"I am pleased to announce the public launch of the "all MEI" Lost Voices Project!  It's freely available to anyone interested in Renaissance music—scholars, teachers, performers, and anyone curious about the humanities in the digital domain.

"The Lost Voices Project centers on 16 sets of music books published by Nicolas Du Chemin in Paris in the years around 1550, offering facsimiles and modern editions of almost 400 chansons by composers like Clément Janequin, Claude Goudimel, Etienne Du Tertre, and many others. You can read the complete poem of each piece (with rhyme diagram), scroll through the piece, or listen to the music in high-quality sampled versions (lute in mean-tone tuning).  Help menus explain how to use the many features of our site.  

"The project also opens these chansons to some novel modes of collaborative inquiry. We have built a large database of analytic observations about the music (with some 11,000 entries). You can search, sort, and save your queries. With a free individual account you can collect ‘favorite’ pieces, take private notes on them, and participate in live public discussions about them. (The ‘help’ menus explain how to request an account, or how to reset your password if you already have one).  

"Meanwhile we have created new kinds of dynamic digital editions using the open-source Music Encoding Initiative standard. Here you can view variants and emendations (with critical reports for each piece), as well as display any phrase or analytic segment instantly in any modern internet browser (no special software is needed).  

"You can also take part in our collaborative exploration of the “lost voices”:  reconstructions of the contratenor and bassus parts of dozens of pieces from the last five volumes of our corpus. You can compare different solutions (just as you can compare variant readings for the complete works). If you like, you can also contact us to submit a reconstruction of your own.   

"The project will be explained in an essay in Early Music that will appear in a few weeks. 

"Professor Freedman thanks the many colleagues and students who have made all of this possible; his partners at the CESR in Tours (led by the incomparable Philippe Vendrix) for their patience, enthusiasm and vision; and the  funding agencies whose generous support make all of this possible: the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the), the CNRS, the CESR, and Haverford College.

Further funding allows a related project to run for the next three years.

Who Visited Herr Henle?

An unusual link to share with you here - the digitized guest book of one of Germany's biggest music publishing houses.  It gives interesting insights into musical life in Germany between 1942 and 1979, with little comments, scribbled pictures and more.  Here's how Henle describe the book:- 

"Claudio Arrau, Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Rubinstein - the founder of our publishing house Dr. Günter Henle and his wife Anne Liese often invited the most distinguished musicians of the time to their home.

From 1942 to 1979 they kept a guest book. We have now digitalized and transcribed it. In addition we have also compiled several indexes, as well as biographies of the artists who were their guests.

We would like to invite you to delve into this treasure trove with its insights into people, dates and relationships. You can view it in its entirety and free-of-charge online.
» to the guest book

There are also some treasures to be found amongst our new editions ...."

World Poetry Day!

Yesterday was World Ballet Day, as you'll have noticed from our last blogpost.  (Ah, ballet - poetry in motion!)  There's something rather nice about World Ballet Day being followed by World Poetry Day.  The Whittaker Library - not surprisingly, in a library for dramatic and musical performers - has plenty of poetry.

• Take a look at our poetry collection HERE.
• Visit the Scottish Poetry Library website HERE.
• We wouldn't want our musicians to feel left out, so here are some musical limericks to brighten their day:- click HERE.
• Karen has a particular interest in bardic things, so let's revive her posting about Welsh bards while we're at it!  HERE.

World Ballet Day!

We are in the midst of World Ballet Day! You can watch the day-long live stream on YouTube until 11pm tonight of five of the world's leading ballet companies in rehearsal. You can observe The Royal Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet warm up and listen to interviews with choreographers and dancers.
Watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsLCbeXaztg

Would it Help if You Heard your Papers Read to You? Well, You Can!

The Adobe Acrobat "Read out Loud" feature was designed primarily as an accessibility feature, to help readers with visual or other reading impairments. 

You might not even know the facility is there, but it also happens to be a valuable writing tool.  If you hear your work read back to you, you can spot repeated phrases, illogical progressions from one argument to the next, or other irritating sentence structures that just don't sound right. 

Karen explains how it works, HERE.  (It's a pdf for you to practise on!)

We've got a Lot, but there's More ... (What's in a Library?)

We reckon the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Whittaker Library has a great stock.  And remember our invisible resources, too - all the electronic books and journals, databases and streamed sound.  They don't live on shelves, but they're certainly no figment of our imagination!

It's all there on our library website, and there are links from Moodle and Mahara too.

But don't forget - if all that isn't enough, you can look at websites like COPAC to see what books are in all the UK university and national libraries.  If your tutor thinks it's essential for you to read a particular book or journal, or try a piece of music - whether it's just not in stock at the Whittaker Library, or is out of print so we can't get it - then come and ask about Inter Library Loans.

• Whittaker Library website - click HERE.
• COPAC website - click HERE.

Scottish undergraduates and taught Masters degree students can visit other university libraries in Scotland if they take their matriculation card with them.  You can't borrow, but you can consult for reference purposes.  (Scottish research students and staff have limited borrowing rights too; you need a SCONUL Access card to exercise these rights.)

Communists Occupied Upper Clyde Shipbuilders - Songs of Protest

A Rose Loupt Oot
Poetry and Song Celebrating

the UCS (Upper Clyde Shipbuilders)

Work-in

We've just got the chance to get a copy of a book about protest songs written on Clydeside in the 'Seventies.  DETAILS HERE.

It has just been catalogued - you'll find it on the new book display very soon!

Singers, there's going to be a new edition of Faure songs! Peters Edition ...

Researchers at the Royal Academy of Music are assisting with a new edition of Faure's

Wikipedia image

100+ songs for Peters Edition publishers.

Eminent pianist Roy Howat is editor.  Read more HERE on the RAM website.

Watch this space.  We'll get them as they come out, and the first copy is on its way to us ...

Read about an Autism-Friendly Circus App (Guardian Culture Professionals Network)

Show and Tell Circus App

Theatrical and circus performers will be intrigued by this new app, developed by Circus Starr.  It's featured on the latest Guardian Culture Professonals Network blogpost.

"We wanted to produce an app that could somehow capture and convey the essence, magic and unpredictability of circus for a very literal audience. We needed to prepare a child who didn’t like surprises for a show full of surprises … without ruining the surprise", says Circus Starr.

To find out how they did it, you'll need to read the posting!  HERE. 

Are You Multi-Talented? Do You Write Fiction?

The Narrative iStory Contest

 

CLICK HERE:-

 

http://www.narrativemagazine.com/iStory-Contest

 

 

We were sent details of this competition, so we share it for anyone out there who writes fiction.  Good luck!

Sad News: Death of Christopher Hogwood, 24 September 2014

http://www.hogwood.org/news/

Eat Cheaply and Well - an Ideal Post for New Students!

We generally try to post about things related to the performing arts, but this was too good to pass by!  (It's an American website, but hey, students live on budgets in the UK, too!)

• Good Food on a Graduate Stipend (or Adjunct Wages)? 

We Call them Electronic Resources - What's in a Name?

"Where do you keep your E-Resources?"

We talk about "Electronic Resources" and assume our staff and students know what we're talking about.  However, we had a query last year which made us wonder if we're using the right term!  

"Where do you keep your E-Resources?"  

Unpacking the question revealed that this wasn't an enquiry as to where they might be found on our website, but rather, where we physically kept them.  (Right!)

So how should we introduce our electronic resources?  Let's start from the known, move to the unknown.  You use Google. You use Wikipedia.  And IMSLP.  Maybe even Google Scholar and Google Books.  They are all free sources of information.  You don't always know how authoritative they are, or if they retrieve the best information.

Our electronic resources are paid-for, quality sources of information.  We subscribe on our staff and student community's behalf.

Access is via our website, or via our virtual learning network.

• Website access - click here (scroll down, click on Electronic Resources.  There are also E-Journals.)
• Our virtual learning network (a bit like the schools Glow network, but just for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) is called Moodle, with a parallel system called Mahara for shared information.  Once you've signed up to Moodle, you'll be able to access the Library's Mahara page - that is where you'll find our Electronic Resources. 

Do You Understand Scotland Musically? (Can You?)

Understanding Scotland Musically

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

With a keynote address from Dr Gary West.
Forthcoming conference in Newcastle, organised by Royal Conservatoire of Scotland alumnus Simon McKerrell (now an early-career lecturer at the University of Newcastle).

Conference website - click here.

Singers! You've sung Warlock Songs - now celebrate his Anniversary!

120th Anniversary Celebration of Warlock’s Birth

Members of the Peter Warlock Society and their friends are warmly invited
to attend this one day symposium at the British Library.
Saturday 25 October 10am to 5pm

The Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is a member of the Peter Warlock Society. Staff and students of the Conservatoire - do come and ask us about it!

.