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Details from exhibit celebrating John Harbison's 80th Birthday

Celebrating John Harbison’s 80th Birthday

Mills Music Library exhibit in Memorial Library lobby celebrates Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow John Harbison’s amazing – and ongoing – musical career, with a focus on his Madison connection.

Leary lauded as Grammy Awards ceremony approaches

Emeritus Professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies Jim Leary garnering media attention for his Best Album Notes Grammy nomination.

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  • New Book. The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre & Vocality in African American Music, by Nina Sun Eidsheim. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. [ML3917 .U6 E35 2019] From the publisher: “Nina Sun Eidsheim traces the ways in which sonic attributes that might seem natural, such as the voice and its qualities, are socially produced. Eidsheim illustrates how listeners measure race through sound and locate racial subjectivities in vocal timbre—the color or tone of a voice. Eidsheim examines singers Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Scott as well as the vocal synthesis technology Vocaloid to show how listeners carry a series of assumptions about the nature of the voice and to whom it belongs.” Eidsheim is Professor of Musicology at University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice [ML3807 .E43 2015], also published by Duke University Press. The cover art is a Nick Cave Soundsuit, 2017. Photo by James Prinz Photography. #theraceofsound #ninasunedsheim #musicology #culturalstudies #timbre #vocality #africanamericanmusic #nickcaveartist #jamesprinzphotography #millsmusiclibrary
  • On this Presidents’ Day, we are thinking about America’s oldest continuously active professional musical organization—“The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. Founded in 1798 by an act of Congress, the Marine Band’s mission is to perform for the President of the United States and the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Thomas Jefferson gave the Marine Band the title “The President’s Own” in 1801. As an aside, this federal holiday is officially known as Washington’s Birthday, and has only come to be referred to as Presidents’ Day by some citizens in the past 50 years or so. Pictured: Be Glad Then, America, the 2014 album by “The President’s Own“ United States Marine Band, Lt. Col. Jason K. Fettig, Director, with Gunnery Sergeant Sara Dell
  • This is a photocopy manuscript score for John Harbison’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, which he composed for Mead Witter School of Music Artist in Residence and Professor of Viola Sally Chisholm, who will perform the world premiere with pianist Timothy Lovelace as part of a concert happening at 7:30 PM, Sunday, February 17, in Mills Concert Hall in the George L. Mosse Humanities Building, 455 N. Park Street. It’s included in an exhibit Jeanette Casey, Head of Mills Music Library, created and installed in the Memorial Library lobby as part of the monthlong celebration in Madison of John Harbison’s 80th birthday. Harbison feels a strong sense of connection to Madison, evident in the long-running Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, which he has co-directed with his wife Rose Mary Harbison for the last 30 years, to his work in the “composition shack” on their Token Creek farm, to drawing inspiration from the local environment. The exhibit includes materials from Harbison himself, Sarah Schaffer, and our library holdings, and they highlight Harbison’s connections to Madison—ranging from scores for works composed and premiered here, concert programs from Madison performances, and many items pertaining to the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival. The exhibit will remain up throughout February 2019, and is accessible during @memoriallibrary operating hours. #johnharbison #sallychisholm #millsmusiclibrary
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison has announced this year’s recipients of honorary degrees, and Steve Miller will be receiving an honorary doctorate at the commencement ceremony on Friday, May 10, at the Kohl Center. Miller came to @uwmadison as an undergraduate in 1961, spent seven semesters studying comparative literature as an English major and making music with a band he started on campus called The Ardells, then left to pursue his music career just shy of completing his degree. We enjoyed hosting him for a library visit when he came to campus for Homecoming in October 2017. He gave a lecture on making a career in the music industry at The Mead Witter School of Music that same day, directed the @uwbadgerband during their Fifth Quarter after the football game the next day, and gave a benefit concert with the Steve Miller Band at @uniontheater for the Chancellor’s Scholarship Fund. Pictured: Anthology, the 1972 Capitol Records 2-LP release compiling The Best of The Steve Miller Band: 1968-1972. [AAD6195] #stevemiller #stevemillerband #uwmadison #honorarydoctorate #wisconsinmusicarchives #millsmusiclibrary
  • Happy Valentine’s Day! Or is it My Funny Valentine Day? The 1965 Columbia LP My Funny Valentine: Miles Davis in Concert [J Columbia CS 9106] was recorded at New York’s Philharmonic Hall (Avery Fisher Hall from 1973-2015, and now known as David Geffen Hall) on February 12, 1964. It was a benefit concert for voter registration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi, with proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Another album’s worth of material was recorded that night and released in 1966 as ‘Four’ & More. Columbia combined the two albums for the 1992 2-CD set The Complete Concert: 1964. [COMP DISC 31386] #myfunnyvalentine #milesdavis #millsmusiclibrary