2008–2009
music briefs photo by bob handelman
Oral History American Music now part of the Gilmore Library The Directors of Oral History of American Music (oham) have announced that oham is now an official component of Yale’s Irving S. Gilmore Music Library. oham is the only ongoing project in the field of music that is dedicated to the collection and preservation of recorded memoirs in the voices of the creative musicians of our time. For the nearly forty years of its distinguished history, oham has been affiliated with both the Yale School of Music and the Yale University Library, existing as an independent project responsible for raising its own funding. With the move to the Library, oham now enjoys ongoing support for its many activities. That support was complemented in March 2008, when the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded oham
and the Library a substantial grant to facilitate the transition of oham from project to Library department. In addition, oham Director Vivian Perlis and Associate Director Libby Van Cleve, working with University development officers, have embarked on a fundraising effort to establish a permanent endowment for oham. All of these changes will help to ensure that oham can continue to collect and disseminate the oral history of American music, and that this unique and valuable archive will be preserved. oham’s involvement with the Yale School of Music continues with several new undertakings: an oral history of the Yale School of Music began with interviews of Keith Wilson and Aldo Parisot, with many distinguished faculty to follow. Also, in partnership with the
Yale School of Music, oham continues to produce netcasts from the archive’s historical interviews distributed over iTunes at no charge. oham’s first netcasts featured Aaron Copland and Charles Ives; another, focusing on Virgil Thomson, is in production, and future netcasts are in the planning stages. For decades, oham staff members have used innovative means to document music history, and we are pleased to use new technology to further disseminate some of the archive’s holdings. — Libby Van Cleve ’92dma
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