Kevin Bartram, director of the UMW Philharmonic Orchestra, is leading a treasure hunt.
Working with a national research team in tandem with the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Bartram recently kicked off a project to find American classical masterworks that have been long forgotten.
Known as “Unearthing America’s Musical Treasures,” the project is Bartram’s brainchild. The team consists of eight college orchestra directors from around the country. They will conduct both online and onsite research into orchestral works that are unknown to the public.
The Library of Congress’ music division has more than 25 million holdings, making it the largest music library in the world. Of these holdings, 10 million are of American music, with a significant portion not yet digitized and some collections still awaiting full cataloguing.
Loras Schissel, a librarian and American music specialist at the Library of Congress, noted that the Library holds the full papers of many major composers, both from the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. While the general public knows and loves individual works by those composers, their papers may contain many complete works that are less well-known – and, as a result, less frequently played and enjoyed.
Having a willing cadre of conductors mine the Library’s holdings for this little-heard music will be a treat for the musicians who will play it and the audiences they play for, Schissel said.
The research team, part of the College Orchestra Directors Association (of which Bartram is national president), will comb through the extensive archives at the Library of Congress with the goal of “rediscovering American symphonic music,” and encourage performances and recordings by American orchestras.
“There may be undiscovered gems by great composers – We intend to find them and bring them to light,” Bartram said.
Members of the team include orchestra directors from Cornell University, the University of Massachusetts Boston, the University of Arizona and others.
The first fruits of “Unearthing America’s Musical Treasures” will be publicized unveiling in Washington, D.C., in 2017 at the national conference of the College Orchestra Directors Association.
Andrew Kraus says
What a GREAT IDEA! Congratulations, Kevin Bartram, and “Good Hunting”. I look forward to hearing the best of the treasures you unearth as you make them part of the orchestra’s repertoire.