Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 13, 2007|Volume 35, Number 25

Vivian Perlis honored as
chronicler of American music

Vivian Perlis, the founding director of Yale's Oral History, American Music (OHAM) project, has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Music for her leadership in creating an archive of oral and videotaped interviews with leading figures in the music world.

The Oral History, American Music collection is widely used by scholars, historians, broadcasters and producers.

A historian of American music, Perlis is the author of "Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History" and is co-author of "Copland: 1900 Through 1942" and "Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington." She also has authored numerous articles and reviews and produced recordings of the music of Leo Ornstein and Charles Ives as well as television documentaries on Ives, Eubie Blake, Aaron Copland and John Cage.

In its citation for Perlis, the Society for American Music noted that she "pioneered a whole new methodology within [her] discipline.

"... Perlis has for over 30 years been an intrepid chronicler of the American musical experience and has done so by honoring the voices of those whose story she tells," the citation reads. "She has accomplished this as an amiable powerhouse, fusing the roles of scholar, archivist, administrator, fundraiser, filmmaker and writer -- not to mention wife, mother and professional harpist. All this was initiated in an era when libraries honored print culture, and musicology was focused on traditions from long ago and far away."

The citation continues, "She has built an archive of over 800 interviews with American composers, performers and other musicians, and all the while, she has continued to produce books. Her most recent, 'Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington,' co-authored with Libby Van Cleve and drawn from interviews in OHAM's vaults, once again has an almost epic conception: it includes two CDs and is planned as the first of several volumes. This woman does not think small. She has made documentaries of Ives, Copland, Eubie Blake and John Cage. She initiated a revival of interest in the music of Leo Ornstein by discovering him in a trailer in Texas in the 1970s. She has persistently documented outsiders and bucked the system, always with more than a touch of class."

Perlis has received a number of other honors and awards, including the Charles Ives Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a Grammy nomination for "Charles Ives 100th Anniversary," the Harvey Kantor Award for excellence in the field of oral history, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Irving Lowens Award for distinguished scholarship in American music from the Sonneck Society.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Program celebrates town-gown ties, diversity

Charlie Rose of PBS to present Fryer Lecture

Study: Early estrogen therapy may reduce cardiovascular risks

In Focus: Women Faculty Forum

Exhibit celebrates centennial of Yale benefactor Paul Mellon

Three congregations to demonstrate ancient tradition of line-singing

Geologist Jun Korenaga is honored for his research on the Earth's mantle

Alumnus describes how life's challenges have also been a 'gift'

Vivian Perlis honored as chronicler of American music

Three award-winning alumni writers will read from their works

Yale Opera to stage classic operetta in a new style

Homage to director Rossellini will highlight program on Italian cinema

'Biodiversity and global change' are focus of Peabody event

Traditional calligraphy by Chinese student featured in benefit exhibition

Kristin Savard wins this year's Hockey Humanitarian Award

Campus Notes