 | Vivian Perlis, founder and director of the Oral History, American Music project, and Libby Van Cleve, assistant director, look over materials from the archive. |
The voices of America's great musicians -- from Duke Ellington to Aaron Copland, to John Cage to Frank Zappa -- will be preserved for future generations with help from a federal grant awarded to the Oral History, American Music (OHAM) project at Yale.
The program received a $148,000 Save America's Treasures Grant, one of only eight such awards given to arts-related institutions in the country. The funds will be used to preserve OHAM'S collection of oral and video memoirs of major figures in American music.
"It is very satisfying to know that our federal government recognizes that American composers are national treasures," says Vivian Perlis, founder and director of the project, which is affiliated with both the School of Music and the University Library. "We are pleased to have the means to preserve their voices and to make these unique primary source materials available into the future."
Founded in 1969, OHAM is the only ongoing project in the field of music dedicated to collecting and preserving oral and video memoirs of musicians who have helped shape American culture. In addition to creating these materials, OHAM serves as an archive where the tapes and transcripts can be used by students, scholars, arts producers and the media. Its collection includes recordings of major figures who are no longer alive (such as Eubie Blake, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, Charles Mingus, Nadia Boulanger and Virgil Thomson, as well as the above-named artists) and tapes made at various stages of a composer's career (such as interviews with contemporary artists John Adams, Steve Reich, Dave Brubeck, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and John Harbison).
The federal grant will be used over two years on a matching basis to ensure proper preservation of the OHAM collection. Original tapes, transcripts and video tapes will be duplicated and stored at Yale's newly constructed state-of-the-art library shelving facility (LSF). All tapes will be duplicated to analog reel-to-reel format, widely considered to be the most stable medium for archival purposes. In addition, two CD copies will be made of each recording, one as the reference master and the other for use by researchers; these will be stored at the OHAM office. Original transcripts and video tapes will be held at LSF. User copies will be made and stored at OHAM. Humidifiers and air conditioners will be installed at OHAM to provide climate control.
OHAM is supported entirely by grants and donations. Other funding organizations include the Burden Family Trust, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Copland Fund for Music, ASCAP and BMI Foundations, The Friends of Music at Yale, and other sources.
Save America's Treasures is administered by the National Park Service in partnership with the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
For further information, call (203) 432-1988, or visit the website at www.yale.edu/oham.
T H I S
Grant to help preserve composers'
voices as 'national treasures'
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