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The University at Buffalo Music Library is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a grant in the amount of $11,000 by the J. Warren Perry & Charles Donald Perry Memorial Trust of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. The funds will be used to begin the process of reformatting a portion of the music library's holdings of reel- to-reel tape recordings that date back to the 1960s.

The first two collections to be reformatted will be the recordings of the fifty-three June in Buffalo concerts, 1975–80, and the eighty-five Evenings for New Music Concerts, 1964–80. These concert series were but two of several series created for the presentation of contemporary music by the Music Department of the University at Buffalo and the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Contents of the concerts are notable for including dozens of world and U.S. premieres, performances of works by the most prominent composers of the twentieth century, performances by composers of their own works, spoken comments by composers about their works, and performances by leading contemporary music performance specialists. The grant will enable the music library to establish a model for this sort of audio reformatting that can be applied in the future to other audio holdings in the collection, as well as similar holdings in the University Archives and Special Collections.

Reformatting the reel-to-reel audio tapes in the Music Library has become a critical matter of preservation. Many of the tapes are nearing the end of their projected fifty-year lifespan and may already have deteriorated beyond the point where it is feasible to perform this sort of technical work in-house. Thus, the music library selected a vendor with a very strong reputation in this field. The audio reformatting will be performed by George Blood's Safe Sound Archives in Philadelphia. Mr. Blood has extensive experience in this field and his clients include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Public Library, University of Pennsylvania, the United States Marine Corps Band, and many other prestigious institutions.

The reformatting will also make it possible to provide good quality service copies of the materials for use by patrons. Increased and easier access to the materials will make it more likely that commercial release of some of the recordings could be facilitated in the future. New World Records released two recordings from the music library's holdings on its 2005 release, Julius Eastman, Unjust Malaise (80638-2, CD). Reformatting will make it easier to pursue similar collaborations in the future.

Dr. J. Warren Perry has been a generous benefactor of the music library in the past, with his donation of two collections of photographs: The J. Warren Perry Collection of Photographs, ca. 1910–71 (chiefly opera-related and other musical content), and the J. Warren Perry Collection of Ballet Photographs, ca. 1910–60. Digital versions of the more than 2,400 photographs in both collections can be viewed online at http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/collections/lib/lib-mus/lib-mus006_Perry.php and http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/collections/lib/lib-mus/lib-mus010_PerryBallet.php (both accessed 21 November 2007) respectively. Dr. Perry's donations also include physical artifacts of musical interest, including coins, stamps, autograph letters, correspondence, and clippings.

The Juilliard School has received from the family of Artur Rubinstein (1887–1982) an extensive collection of the pianist's published scores and original manuscripts that had been seized by the Nazis from Rubinstein's Paris apartment and recently returned to his children by the German government. Among the seventy-one items is the manuscript of Villa Lobos's Rudepoêma, which was dedicated to Rubinstein, as well as autographs of works by Carmago Guarnieri and Germaine Tailleferre. The Dutch musicologist, Willem de Vries, was instrumental in identifying these works and aiding in their return to the family. The Rubinstein Collection will be a part of Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Special Collections, and available to scholars and performers by appointment.

Jane Gottlieb
Juilliard School

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The Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum has received a generous grant of $500,000 from the Kovner Foundation for a three-year project...