Music Library News
October 2007 Archives
October 30, 2007
Ravel Letters & Manuscript Acquired
Two recent acquisitions add to the Music Library's holdings of primary materials relating to Maurice Ravel's life and music. In September, the library purchased a set of 28 letters written by Ravel to lyric soprano Marcelle Gerar (1891-1970), for whom Ravel occasionally served as accompanist and to whom he dedicated the 1924 song Ronsard à son âme. Additionally, earlier this month the library acquired a manuscript written around 1892 during Ravel's first period of study at the Paris Conservatory. Consisting of various three-voice counterpoint exercises, the manuscript is a valuable document of the methods by which Ravel learned and refined his early skills as a composer.
These acquisitions, which complement other Ravel manuscripts in the Music Library's collection, were purchased with support of the Constance Heilman Brakke Endowed Fund, the James A. and Sally Ann Hagan Endowed Fund, and the Christine S. Lewis Music Library Fund.
October 1, 2007
Welcome to Morris Levy
The Music Library gladly welcomes Morris Levy to our staff as Senior Music Cataloger. Morris comes to Northwestern from Harvard University's Houghton Library, where since 2001 he has been a Project Music Cataloger for the John Ward Theatre Collection. Prior to that position, Morris was Assistant Librarian at the Berklee College of Music's Stan Getz Media Center and Library from 2000-2001. Morris's duties at Northwestern will include cataloging scores, sound recordings, manuscripts, and other materials as well as managing all Music Library cataloging operations.
Morris holds a B.A. in Music History and Theory from Oberlin College, an M.A. in Folklore with a concentration in Ethnomusicology from Indiana University, and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a member of the Music Library Association, and his publications include The King's Theatre Collection: Ballet and Italian Opera in London, 1706-1883 from the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection, Harvard Theatre Collection (Houghton Library, 2003; rev. ed. 2006), Italian Ballet, 1637-1977 from the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection, Harvard Theatre Collection (Houghton Library, 2005), sixteen articles in the Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge, 2006), and reviews in Notes and the Journal of American Folklore.
