Try out Europeana - Multimedia Portal for Images, Audio, Video, Books ...

http://www.europeana.eu/portal/

Europeana is best described as a multimedia gateway or portal to all sorts of European digital collections.  You can look for images, music, video, books and more, all digitised and uploaded from different libraries, museums and other initiatives.

Folk music, photography, recording technology and first world war archival material are just a few of the subjects covered.  There's a lot about field recording Irish traditional music, and the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

Test Phase Music Channel - Feedback requested!

Right now there's an experimental portal for music, and Europeana wants feedback.  So make yourself a coffee, and do spend a few minutes exploring.  Your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.  Anyone can respond, with institutional comments particularly welcome, so if you lead a course or department, please do make the most of this pilot phase.

• http://test.europeana.eu/portal/channels/music

British Sign Language Dictionary

British Sign Language Dictionary

 

Search and compare thousands of words and phrases in British Sign Language (BSL). The largest collection of free video signs online.

Ballet Online: RCS opportunity to watch Le Corsaire ballet via Digital Theatre Plus

Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland are invited to follow this link on Digital Theatre Plus, to watch a video of the ballet, Le Corsaire .

Digital Theatre Plus are thrilled to release our first production in our new Collection from world-renowned dance company English National Ballet.

Le Corsaire (The Pirate) is a thrilling ballet about Conrad, a dashing pirate, and his love for Medora, a beautiful harem girl. It is a swashbuckling drama of captive maidens, rich sultans, kidnap and rescue, disguise and conspiracy, love and betrayal, culminating in a shipwreck that is one of the most breathtaking
spectacles in ballet. English National Ballet is the first UK company to perform the complete work, which showcases some of the most bravura male dancing in the ballet repertoire.

Reviews of Le Corsaire
"A roaring madcap success." - The Financial Times

"Any production that gives us Alina Cojocaru as Medora is worth paying good money to see." - The Guardian

Watch Le Corsaire now using your RCS entitlement!

Tuesday Nights At the Whittaker Library

It's Trimester 3.  It's Tuesday.  And the Whittaker Library is open until 8 pm - and will be open every Tuesday evening until the undergraduates return for Trimester 1.

What are you waiting for?! If RCS staff or students need books, scores, music, playscripts, or advice about our online resources ... please do drop in.

• Tuesday music
• Tuesday plays
• Tuesday themed audio

Copyright Free Images! Music to your Ears (and Delight to your Eyes)

Free Images!

How to access a million stunning, copyright-free antique illustrations released by the British Library

The British Library is making millions of images available to you, copyright free.

When there's so much doom and gloom about copyright, isn't it nice to read about something free for a change?  Click here to find out more!

Edinburgh Festival Voice Workshop

Work with Ros Steen

Wednesday 12 and 19 August

Prof. Ros Steen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Click the link above to book a place on one of these Wednesday workshops - but hurry, places are limited!

Finding the Big Band Charts

We have quite a few big band charts in the Whittaker Library collection.  All beautifully catalogued, too, but there was a problem.  

What our jazz musicians asked for, was 'big band charts'.  But although our catalogue gave details of composer, arranger, title, publisher, instrumentation - the words big band chart just weren't there. 

It felt like a summer project for Trimester 3.  Although it hasn't felt much like summer here, we're proud to say that the big band chart project is now under way.  All the wind and brass sets are being checked to ensure there aren't any big band charts hiding away, undiscovered and/or undiscoverable.  And all the big band charts are getting their catalogue entries revised to make them more accessible.

You want to find big band charts?  Type big band chart in the catalogue search box!  So far, it looks like this (click here).  Keep coming back - there will be more by the end of next week!

What They Played at Paris Conservatoire Competitions

There's a new series of instrumental anthologies, just published by A-R Editions:-

Music from the Paris Conservatoire

We've ordered a set for the Whittaker Library, and the first copies will hit our new books display next week.  Each book contains the best late 19th century contest repertoire for an orchestral instrument accompanied by piano.

• Check out the publishers' page
• Check out what's been added to the Whittaker Library collection

Transcripts: Character Study will "enable a comedic situation to occur on stage"

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland actors have access to Digital Theatre Plus, and that means they can view the latest DTP offering online:-

Transcripts: Character Study

"This week we focus on interviews that emphasise the importance of detailed character work in order to enable a comedic situation to occur on stage. William Shakespeare and Noël Coward are centuries apart but share a common bond in their ability to take some of the most sensitive and delicate of life's moments and garner humour from them. Life is funny: they both know how to write it as it is. Our featured performers are accomplished at getting the most from their wordplay."

On Acting: Toby Stephens Private Lives, Chichester Festival Theatre Elyot Chase is an impulsive, funny, erratic, passionate man. Toby Stephens reveals how he gets under his skin in performance.
On Acting: Anna Chancellor Private Lives, Chichester Festival Theatre Anna Chancellor shares her feelings about the character of Amanda in Private Lives and what she does to prepare to bring her to life in all her glory on stage.
Q&A: The Comedy of Errors The Comedy of Errors, Royal Shakespeare Company
Each performance of a play is subtly different depending on the connection between the actors on stage and the audience. Actors from the RSC’s The Comedy of Errors discuss their work immediately after the show.

• RCS registered readers should ask at the Library for the latest password to Digital Theatre Plus.

So Copyright Doesn't Affect You? Even BBC gets in Trouble

Spotted in the Daily Mail, this surprising story ....

"Bake Off's Sound of Music advert is axed after BBC is accused of breaching copyright"

Read more here.

(Daily Mail Social Media links @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook")

Paddington Bear Visits the Whittaker Library

Going through a batch of music for beginners, we've found what must be the most enchanting title of the day - 

Paddington Bear's First Concert (story by Michael Bond, music by Herbert Chappell).  It's arranged by the composer for narrator and piano.  To be truthful, it's for an experienced pianist and a speaker - we're not sure how it got in a batch of beginners' music!

We just can't resist adding it to stock.Check the new book display next week.

RCS Researcher Rachel Drury at the Two Moors Festival

Opera for Babies?  Why, Yes!

 RCS researcher Rachel Drury has been interviewed for the official Two Moors Festival Blog.  We spotted the blogposting and thought we'd share it with you here!

An Interval with Rachel Drury of BabyO

Rachel's doctoral research was on Kodaly music education, and she has also played saxophone in 'The Farmer's Cheese', a musical work for use with hearing impaired children.  See both her thesis and the music score here in the Whittaker Library (book details).

Can I Download Illegal Music? The UK Law on Piracy

Sunday Times Cover story: How Piracy is Killing Creativity, by Jonathan Dean 

We spotted an interesting cover story in the Sunday Times magazine recently.  The author, Jonathan Dean, argues that piracy is killing creativity, but that the younger generation maybe doesn't recognize the problem.

You can read the article online here.

• http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/music/article1547025.ece

Our Scottish Music Graded Exams (not sold by the Library, but here's the Link!)

We're regularly asked whether the Whittaker Library sells the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Scottish Music Graded Exam music.  Actually, we don't, but "we know a man who can ...."

Visit the RCS website for the Scottish Music exams here, and you'll find a link to the suppliers.

https://www.rcs.ac.uk/traditional-music-graded-exams/

Mozart Sonata K.331 (Alla Turca finale) Autograph Fragment Online

Newly discovered autograph fragment 

Mozart's famous Sonata in A major, K. 331 (with 'Alla Turca' finale)

The Hungarian National Széchényi Library has just launched a website to make this precious manuscript freely accessible to all:- http://mozart.oszk.hu/index_en.html

Balázs Mikusi (mikusi@oszk.hu)

Head of Music

National Széchényi Library, Budapest 

You will also be delighted to hear that Henle is producing a new Urtext edition of the sonata - there's a video about it here.

Who, What, Where, When? The Concert Programmes Database

Here's another useful database for music historians!  Have you looked at the Concert Programmes Database?

You'll be astonished what's there.

http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/

Royal Opera House Collections Online

If you're interested in operatic history, you'll find this invaluable.  It's a database of Royal Opera House performances, going back in time ...

Royal Opera House Collections - click here

Alumna Robyn Stapleton to sing on Dundee's Frigate Unicorn

Since Robyn is an alumna of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, we thought we'd help promote her forthcoming performance in Dundee:-

Frigate Unicorn, Victoria Dock, Dundee - Robyn Stapleton

Scotland’s finest young traditional singer, BBC Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician 2014, Scots Singer of the Year nominee, will be singing on board the Unicorn on Friday 10th July.

Robyn, who hails from Stranraer, is touring Scotland to celebrate her debut album “Fickle Fortune” which was released in May to critical acclaim.

Recent career highlights include being commissioned to record “Coming Thro The Rye” for Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, and performances at the Trad Music Awards and, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, at Proms in the Park!

Robyn is no stranger to Dundee having given two recitals at the Wighton Heritage Centre. Sheena Wellington, who tutored Robyn during her honours year at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, said of her former student:-

‘Robyn was gifted with a beautiful voice, warm, rich, flexible and distinctive. Couple this with a true love and respect for her material and the ability to engage an audience anywhere from a care home to a Prom concert hall and you have a very special singer indeed.’

Robyn will be accompanied by band members Kristan Harvey of Blazin Fiddles (Young Traditional Musician 2011), David McNee in guitar and bouzouki and Alistair Iain Paterson on piano and harmonium (Young Traditional Musician Finalist 2014).

• Doors open at 6:15 for performance at 7:00pm
• Tickets £9 (£7 concession) 
• Online booking: https://www.gammabookings.com/FrigateUnicorn/
• Or available at the door.

Friends of Wighton, Wighton Heritage Centre
Central Library, Wellgate
Dundee DD1 1DB

www.friendsofwighton.com

Friends of Wighton gratefully acknowledge the support of Leisure & Communities Dundee, MMG Archbold, Chartered Accountants and The Weavers Café, Dundee Central Library

Referencing Just Got Easier!

RefME - Have You Discovered It Yet?

We all have our favourite apps when it comes to regularly-performed tasks like referencing.  Karen swears by Mendeley.  Others use Zotero - both are freeware.  (Some institutions offer institutional  access to EndNote, which saves you money.)  Diigo is great freeware for saving hyperlinks to the cloud.

So why try another?  Well, we read a review of RefME in the Times Higher Education magazine, and it looks impressively simple.  Most of us just want to keep a list of what we've read, and a way of pulling it into whatever we're writing, whether for footnotes, endnotes or a bibliography.

That's what RefME does.  Find your book via the search box, and save it.  Exporting couldn't be simpler - it provides a box of text for you to copy and paste into your paper, in a wide range of formats.

•  RefME
• THE review of RefME by Chris Havergal

Ambache - Raising the Profile of Music by Women

We received a gift of three CDs from Ambache Charitable Trust, today.

Not only are the CDs a lovely addition to stock, but we also learned about a charitable trust that we hadn't heard of before.

Take a look:- http://ambache.co.uk/

Our new CDs:-

• American classics series: Louise Talma
• American classics series: Marion Bauer
• 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.

Find the CDs on our shelves here.  (And more about women composers here!)