Music Library News

John Adams Visits Music Library

On May 17, the Music Library welcomed John Adams, winner of the School of Music's Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition. For a report on the Chicago premiere of Adams's Nixon in China, PBS affiliate WTTW interviewed the composer in the Music Library's reading room. Following the interview, Mr. Adams met with D.J. Hoek, Head of the Music Library, for a tour of the library's current exhibit of manuscripts by American composers.

Notable Acquisitions

The Music Library is pleased to announce that is has acquired the archive of the publishing firm American Music Edition (AME). Founded in 1951 by composer Ray Green, AME played an important role in documenting and disseminating new American music by publishing Green's own compositions, the works of prominent figures such as Carl Ruggles and Halsey Stevens, and music by other composers. Consisting of manuscripts, business papers, and extensive correspondence, the archive reflects AME's repertoire as well as the interactions Green had with many key figures in twentieth-century music. Purchase of the AME archive was made possible with support from the Charles Deering McCormick Fund.

Along with the AME archive, the library has supplemented its holdings of research materials concerning contemporary music by acquiring the manuscripts for the following works:

• Iannis Xenakis's Chantelaine [196-?], an incomplete and unpublished chamber work
  
• Hermann Heiss's "Nichts davon," song no. 10 from Expression K: 13 Gesänge nach Worten von Kafka (1953)
  
• An untitled, unpublished chamber work [198-?] by Peter Michael Hamel
  

These manuscripts were purchased with support from the Black Dog Fund, the Constance Heilman Brakke Endowed Fund, the James A. and Sally Ann Hagan Endowed Fund, and the Christine S. Lewis Music Library Fund.

Other recent acquisitions include a rare volume of writings by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela (München: Heiner Friedrich, 1969) and a program from a 1978 British film series featuring otherwise unpublished essays by Michael Nyman and his frequent collaborator, filmmaker Peter Greenaway.