American Art Music

The American Composers Alliance was founded in 1937 as an independent licensing association with the purpose of representing and promoting American contemporary classical music.The Official Records of the American Composers Alliance comprises composers' correspondence, photographs, news clippings, biographies and resumes, brochures and concert programs, published recordings, legal forms and contracts, and applications. The collection spans the history of the ACA since its inception in 1937.

Formed in 1929 "for the purpose of furthering the interests of outstanding American Band Masters, and of interesting composers, arrangers, and music publishers in Wind Band music," the American Bandmasters Association (ABA) continues to champion the causes of American bands and bandmasters today. Its members' accomplishments include the election of John Philip Sousa to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans, the publication of the Journal of Band Research, and the establishment of several awards and prizes, including the Ostwald Band Composition Contest and the Edwin Franko Goldman Memorial Citation. The collection consists of publications, including the Journal of Band Research and the ABA Newsletter; correspondence; conference materials and programs; meeting minutes; committee reports; financial and administrative records; oral histories; directories and membership lists; photographs, memorabilia, and recordings. Specific documentation can be found on the ABA Research Center, the ABA Ostwald Award, the Board of Directors, officers, committees and annual conferences.

Stephen Albert (1941-1992) was an American composer and teacher. Graduating from the Philadelphia Musical Academy with a BM in 1962, he received commissions from notable American Orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony. He worked as a teacher, one of his most notable positions being at the Juilliard School. James Joyce inspired much of Albert’s later music, yet two of his most well known compositions are his Cello Concerto (1990), for which he received a Grammy Award, and his symphony RiverRun (1992-93), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Included in the papers are Albert’s published and unpublished scores, manuscripts, correspondence, personal files, photographs, books, and musical instruments.

Grant Beglarian (b. Tiflis, Georgia, December 1, 1927; d. White Plains, NY, July 5, 2002) was an Armenian-American composer and music educator. Beglarian moved to the United States in 1947 to study composition at the University of Michigan and received his DMA in 1958. Throughout his career, he wrote for a variety of genres: symphony orchestra, band, chamber groups, solo instruments, and voice. During the 1960s, Beglarian worked for the Ford Foundation, and one of the main projects he oversaw was the Contemporary Music Project for Creativity in Music Education (CMP), serving as the director from 1965-1969. He also participated in the CMP as a composer-in-residence for the Composer in Public Schools (CPS) program. The papers pertain to Beglarian’s work with the CMP and the Ford Foundation.

James Bolle (1931-2019) was an American conductor and composer who was instrumental in founding numerous musical organizations, including the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, his major works include the opera Oleum Canis, five sinfonias, four string quartets, concerti, orchestral works, songs and chamber music. The James Bolle papers includes materials relating to the festival Monadnock Music, press books, and notated music materials, such as holographs, print masters, and individual parts. from many of Bolle’s more notable works, including the Christopher Smart Cantata, and four concerto for violin, piano, oboe, and clarinet.

Harold Brown was a composer and violist/violinist born in New York in 1909. He attended Columbia College where he studied composition and conducting under many notable pedagogues including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Wagenaar, and Leon Barzin. He also studied with Nadia Boulanger at Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris as part of the Mosenthal Fellowship. Brown became a well-loved teacher at both the high school and college level. He taught many things including composition, orchestration, music theory, and chorus as well as working as a freelance string player. This collection contains a selection of his compositions for choir, orchestra, string orchestra, chamber ensembles, and piano.

The Contemporary Music Project (CMP) spanned a fourteen-year period from 1959 to 1973. Originally named the The Young Composers Project (YCP), the CMP consisted of three programs: Professionals-in-Residence to Communities, the Teaching of Comprehensive Musicianship, and Complementary Activities. The CMP records consist of approximately twenty-five linear feet of documents; scores donated by the young composers, taped performances of CMP compositions, video tapes of the Eastman workshops; the recording "Comprehensive Musicianship Training" and the film "What is Music"; microfilm used by University Microfilms to produce the CMP Library, and the CMP Library itself. The records have been housed in the MENC Historical Center at the University of Maryland since the conclusion of the project in June 1973. A browsable listing of scores in the collection can be found at the SCPA Scores Database. The processing of this collection was supported by the Rose Marie Grentzer Fund.

Thomas DeLio, born Jan 7, 1951, is an American experimental music composer, author, and educator. His research includes analyses and discourse on the likes of John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Iannis Xenakis. He is currently a professor in music theory and composition at the University of Maryland. This collection contains correspondence, compositions and sketches by DeLio and his students, presentation papers from conferences and classes, DeLio's dissertation, theses and dissertations from students, publications and reviews, photographs, programs, and newspaper clippings.

Becky Dukes is an American composer and singer, and has composed over a hundred pieces of music, both for the piano and with lyrics. Her collection consists of press materials, compact discs, and 36 photocopied scores.

Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956) was a bandmaster, author, composer, and founding member and first president of the American Bandmasters Association. He received his musical training at the National Conservatory in New York, and from 1899-1909 he held the position of solo cornet with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In 1911, he formed the Goldman Band, and by 1918, the band was performing a free summer concert series, which later became known as the Guggenheim Concert Series. Goldman conducted this series until his death in 1956. This collection was compiled by Mabel Rosenthal, a family friend of Goldman's, and consists of newspaper clippings, programs, correspondence, photographs, medals, and scores related to Goldman's career as a conductor and composer.

Irwin Heilner (1908-1991) was a notable American composer who lived in the New York City metro area and was once a member of the American Composers Aliance. The papers include one box containing correspondence, photographs, programs, and clippings sent from Heilner to Sarah (Waldstein) and Max Arthur Cohn between 1931 and 1985. Sarah Cohn was a longtime friend of Heilner's. Max Arthur Cohn remains one of the notable American painters from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) era.

Topics covered in the correspondence include music, contemporaneous composers and musicians, internationla travel, Nadia Boulanger, performances and reviews of Heilner's music, family life, and art.

Harriett Dolores Johnson (1906–1987) was an American composer and music critic for the New York Post during the twentieth century. This collection contains Johnson’s compositions, recordings, photographs, articles, reviews, correspondence, and travel information throughout her career.

Gregory Kosteck (1937 – 1991) was an American composer and educator. This collections consists of scores composed by Kosteck. The scores include facsimile editions of Kosteck's compositions, as well as published editions.

Raymond Luedeke (b. New York, NY, 11 November 1941), a North American composer, clarinetist, and educator, was born a U.S. citizen but also became a naturalized citizen of Canada in 1988. He returned to New York in 2010. Luedeke earned a Bachelor of Music in music history from the Eastman School of Music in 1966, a Master of Music in composition from the Catholic University of America in 1971, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from Northwestern University in 1976. His composition teachers include George Crumb, George T. Jones, and Alan Stout. As a clarinetist, he was briefly principal clarinet with the Colorado Philharmonic, studied at the Vienna Academy of Music on a Fulbright Grant (1966-1967), and then played clarinet in the U.S. Air Force Band (1967-1971). Luedeke served as a composition and clarinet professor at University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point (1971-1974), followed by a similar appointment at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (1976-81). In 1981, he became associate principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony, where he stayed until his retirement in 2010. The collection consists of scores and part sets of his compositions from 1965 through 2016, recordings of his compositions from 1987 through 2015, and professional papers from 1966 through 2016.

The Margery Morgan Lowens collection on Edward MacDowell includes holographs, correspondence, photographs, and publications created by MacDowell or his associates. The collection features unpublished works, including the beginnings of a string quartet (noteworthy as MacDowell did not publish any). Dr. Lowens was a musicologist, collector, and MacDowell scholar who amassed this private collection over several decades.

Lawrence Kenneth Moss (b. Los Angeles, 1927) is an American composer and teacher. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 1957 where he studied with Leon Kirchner (1919-2009). Moss served as a composition professor at Mills College (1956-1958), Yale University (1960-1968), and the University of Maryland (1969-2014). The collection consists of scores, sketches, audio and visual recordings, programs, reviews, publicity, materials related to his teaching career, correspondence, and books.

Ann McMillan (1923-1994) was an American composer and musician. The collection consists of music scores (published and manuscript), correspondence, curriculum vitae, articles, concert programs, newspaper clippings, newsletters, books, recordings, ephemera, and other memorabilia related to Ann McMillan’s career.

Alice Parker is an American composer, conductor, and teacher whose work includes more than 400 compositions including operas, cantatas, choral pieces, and songs cycles on Native American texts as well as poetry. From 1949 to 1967 she worked as an arranger for Robert Shaw Chorale, arranging folk songs, hymns, and spirituals from around the world. In 1985, she founded Melodious Accord, Inc., a non-profit which presents choral concerts, hosts workshops, and provides training for composers, conductors, and song leaders. The Alice Parker papers include 290 original manuscripts, documents and related correspondence regarding workshops hosted by Melodious Accord, Inc., programs, and audio materials. The collection spans from 1960 to 2016.

Robert Parris (1924-1999) was known both as a composer and music critic. He earned his B.S. in composition from the Julliard School of Music in 1948, continued studies at Tanglewood from 1950-51, and went on to complete a Fulbright Scholarship from 1952-53. Parris studied with a number of composers including, Peter Mennin, William Bergsma, Jacques Ibert, Aaron Copland, Otto Luening, and Arthur Honegger. Local to the Washington, DC metro area, Parris worked as music critic for both the Washington Post and Washington Star from 1961-1975. After teaching at Washington State College and University of Maryland, Mr. Parris joined the music faculty at George Washington University in 1963. A large number of Parris’ compositions were published by the American Composers Alliance. This collection consists of original scores, sketches, and printing masters of works composed during Parris’ career.

Sam Raphling (1910-1988) was an American composer, pianist, and teacher. The Sam Raphling collection contains many of his scores, which are the bulk of this collection, as well as various texts. Also included are recordings of his performances, compositions, and arrangements.