Frank Sinatra autograph

Suki T. Sommer, 1935-2008

Practically everyone in the music library world is aware of the passing of Suki Sommer, longtime music librarian at New York Public Library. Her death was not unforeseen, but it has brought forth an outpouring of emotion on the MLA list that is worthy of her larger-than-life personality. Both of us, Bonna far more than me, knew Suki and were affected in various ways by her powerful intellect, dedication to our profession, her immense sense of fun, and her professional savvy, among all the other traits that made her beloved within and without music librarianship.

Geraldine Ostrove is gathering reminiscences of Suki for the MLA archives housed at the University of Maryland.

A further note from Bonna:

I will add to Jim’s comments that one reason I think Suki was so important to so many music librarians was her ability to give each music librarian and potential music librarian her undivided and enthusiastic attention. She did not care about “pedigree,” but required only a passion for music librarianship. And, on a local note, Suki was a member of several task forces and committees whose work culminated in establishing the US-RILM Office in 1984. That office (with the generosity of both Lenore Coral and Cornell) continues to document the scholarly literature of music published in the United States and makes significant contributions to the RILM enterprise.

Frank Sinatra Autograph

The Cornell music library is now the proud holder of a Frank Sinatra autographed album. We suspected there were a few hiding in the vast Stasolla gift (for more information see my earlier post on this vast gift of mid-century pop LPs.)

The signature is on a 1961 Reprise demonstration record (interesting in itself) and based on a limited amount of research on Sinatra’s signature, it certainly appears to be genuine. The unusually looped F and S are unmistakable, and it seems unlikely that this is a “secretary signature” (a common phenomenon on Sinatra business documents, often signed by secretaries closely imitating Sinatra, which causes problems on the collector’s market).

We’ll look into scanning this and making it public.

Music Library Association meets in Newport, R.I.

It’s MLA time again, when music librarians from across the country gather in one spot for a few days of, well, doing stuff music librarians do. It’s sort of like lemmings without the cliffs. Jim Alberts will be tending to Bibliographic Control Committee business and Bonna officiating for her term as past president, among other activities.

Bonna has been in Newport, host city for the current convention, since Sunday. Jim will be arriving tomorrow. Both will be returning Monday or Tuesday.

Herbie Hancock takes home Grammy

“Local hero” Herbie Hancock, whose music is one of the major subjects of Cornell professor Steven Pond, took home the Grammy for Album of the Year, Apr. 10, 2008.  An account of last night’s Grammies can be found at CNN.com.

Musicologist Mary Rasmussen dies

With sorrow I inform our fellowship of the death of Mary Helen Rasmussen, Professor emerita of Music at the University of New Hampshire, on 26 January in Durham, New Hampshire.  She was 77 years old and had suffered from cancer, intermittently but eventually finally, since the early 1970s.

Mary was a splendid colleague and a treasured friend of many of us, a “true polymath,” as the minute on her retirement described her in 1997.
We knew her as a self-taught musicologist of remarkable ability and accomplishment and amazing versatility, skilled in many areas of music-making and a tireless researcher in a wide variety of areas.  She graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a bachelor’s degree in 1952 and then went to the University of Illinois, receiving a Master of Music in low brass performance in 1953 and a Master of Library Science in 1956.  For two years, she taught public school in Gorham, New Hampshire, and was always proud that of all the music faculty at UNH, where she was appointed in 1968, she was the only member to have actually taught in the New Hampshire school system.
That Mary never received a doctorate was of no consequence to her productivity and learning.  She was the recipient of a Fulbright award and grants from the Ford and Guggenheim foundations.  She was a regular contributor to the CMS and to AMS meetings locally and nationally, and lectured at many different institutions, including Harvard, Boston University, and the University of Wisconsin.  On the UNH faculty she taught several historical courses but also directed the string methods program, finding time to become a decent cellist who performed regularly, and achieved a statewide renown as a skilled repairer of stringed instruments.

Mary published articles and reviews in a number of different journals, but also became her own publisher.  She founded /Brass Quarterly/ in 1957, merging it soon with /Woodwind Quarterly/, and the combined journal continued until 1969.  From the 1970s she became increasingly active in the field of musical iconography and collected photographs from all over the world.  Her magnum opus, /Musical Subjects in Western European Art/, was the focus of more than two decades of effort, but it remains unfinished.

A memorial service for Mary is in the planning stage, to occur sometime in the spring.

Mark DeVoto
formerly Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities, the University of New Hampshire, 1968-1981

Music Library Listening Area Upgrade

The planned upgrade for workstations, software, and internet access in the music library’s listening area was completed during the December-January break.  The 15 workstations (Dell Optiplex 745s) are equipped with wide-screen LCD monitors, providing an alternative to 13-inch TVs for DVD viewing .  Software includes standard productivity software (Microsoft Office) as well as access to Sibelius notation software.  The workstations allow full internet access, and users may connect to their Blackboard accounts, online audio databases (see the online audio resources on the Music Library links page), as well as other online resources provided by the library.

New Equipment in 316

From Bonna to the faculty, grad students, and anyone else who might be teaching in 316, the Music Seminar Room:

Jim Stanton, of Visual Technologies, and his crew installed the new AV equipment in the seminar room yesterday, and Jim has been fine-tuning the system this morning. He will return on Friday morning to do some additional tweaking and also to provide an overview of how the system works. We’re planning to begin the overview at 9:15a, and, as you’re teaching in 316 this semester, invite you to join us if you’re free (if not, and if you have questions about the system, please make an appointment with Chuck).

The system basically is operational now, if you’d like to use the equipment before Friday. The Crestron panel has been set up to match closely those in B20 and B21. The DVD player and VCR are in the right-hand side of the credenza; there’s a laptop hookup and power supply in the table.

We will give full information on the new equipment in 316 when it’s available.

New Publications by Music Library Staff

Music Librarian Bonna Boettcher has published a review of Arthur Wenk’s The Quarter Note Tales, available from Notes magazine. Also, although it’s somewhat old news now, assistant music librarian Jim Alberts’ review of S.V. Martins’ Henry Gilbert: A Bio-Bibliography appeared in Music Reference Services Quarterly (v. 9, issue 3, 2005, p. 79-81; through the vagaries of journal publishing it appeared only in 2007). This article may be available online to MRSQ subscribers.

More music obituaries for the season…

Christmas/New Years always seems to be tough on musicians (James Brown last year, Dizzy Gillespie in 1993, Leonard Meyer, Dan Fogelberg, and Oscar Peterson this year).

The NY Times obit for Leonard Meyer is available here.  Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist, has many online and newspaper obituaries; the NY Times obit can be found here and the CNN obituary is available here; CNN also has another Peterson article, “Remembering Peterson.”

Dan Fogelberg, famed folk-rocker and later acoustic and bluegrass music enthusiast, died  Dec. 16; his NY Times obit can be found here; there is also a rather hagiographic but informative allmusic.com article on Fogelberg available here.