In 2012 Editorial Estampa inaugurated its series Retalhos da música afro-luso-brasileira with Quejas, Tchufe e Lobo: Reis crioulos do samba, fado e morna dos anos 30 by Alveno Figueiredo e Silva.
The book is a tribute to the memory of Fernando Quejas, Pedro Alcântara de Freitas Silva Ramos (Tchufe), and Antoninho Lobo, popular singers who combined influences from Cape Verdean, Brazilian, and Portuguese cultures.
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Filed under New series, Popular music
In 1892 Alfred Hill, of the London violin-making firm W.E. Hill & Sons, got into an argument about Irish Home Rule with one of his employees. The argument escalated until the employee became enraged and walked out.
This confrontation had considerable consequences; the employee was the firm’s only bow maker.
At a loss, Hill took two men from the case-making department and told them to start making bows. 
Neither William Napier nor William Retford (inset) had any experience as bow makers—but they went on to revolutionize the art of bow making, developing the fine and reliably consistent product that the violin world now knows as the Hill bow.
This according to “Industry meets art: The history of the iconic Hill bow” by Philip J. Kass (Strings XXV/4:187 [November 2010] pp. 61–64).
Related article: The Wonder violin
Filed under Instruments
Library of hope and dreams: A comprehensive annotated bibliography of scholarship about Bruce Springsteen is a free online annotated bibliography of scholarship published in English about The Boss.
A continuously updated resource, as of 7 June 2012 the bibliography had 250 entries including books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers, and web publications. All items are described in full bibliographic detail, abstracted, and indexed by subject keywords and by song and album when appropriate.
Library of Hope and Dreams was created by Denise D. Green at Staley Library, Milikin University.
BONUS: Read about this resource in Hungarian here.
Filed under Popular music, Resources
Stravinsky’s collaborations with the Ballets Russes were only a part of his life between 1910 and 1914; he was also involved with the Parisian avant-garde group known as Les Apaches (The Apaches), an interdisciplinary society that included Ravel, Falla, and the poet Léon-Paul Fargue.
Les Apaches’ support was vital for Stravinsky’s composition of Le sacre du printemps, and its aesthetic preoccupations helped to motivate his decision to set Trois poésies de la lyrique japonaise.
This according to “Stravinsky and The Apaches” by Jann Pasler (The musical times CXXIII/1672 [June 1982] pp. 403-407).
Today is Stravinsky’s 130th birthday! Above, the composer at work in Paris in 1911; below, Evelyn Lear sings the Trois poésies with members of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Craft.
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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music
The music department at the Deichmanske Bibliotek (Oslo Public Library) has recently developed a new package for music teachers in the Norwegian public school system. The service is based on Boomwhackers®, a set of colored plastic tubes that play various notes of the scale when struck.
Children quickly understand the simple notation system based on color, and under the guidance of a teacher begin quickly to play and even compose music. The package includes a set of Boomwhackers®, a detailed guide for teachers based on requirements outlined in the Norwegian national teaching plan of 2006, and a set of large-print sheet music of simple, well-known tunes.
The department also holds courses for teachers, in cooperation with the library’s department for school services, which is part of the Unge Deichman (Young Deichman) department.
This according to “Boomwhackers: A public library service for music teachers in the public school system in Oslo, Norway” by Ann Kunish (Fontes artis musicae LVII/3 [July–September 2010] pp. 291–95). Below, the Unge Deichman department demonstrates.
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Filed under Curiosities, Pedagogy
Sponsored by the Performing Arts Medicine Association, Bibliography of performing arts medicine is a free online resource that focuses on the health problems of instrumental and vocal musicians, dancers, and actors.
The bibliography provides citations from the medical, musical, and popular literature, with emphasis on clinical problems and relevant basic science in performing arts medicine. It can be searched by author, title, publication, or keyword, and searches can be limited to music, acting, or dance.
Related article: Music and medicine
Of the many Hollywood films made about Africa, the Tarzan films are among the most influential in creating stereotyped notions of African peoples, geography, and social organization.
An examination of the portrayal of Africa and Africans in Cedric Gibbons’s Tarzan and his mate (1934) provides a window into how music has been used to generate these stereotypes and calls into question the degree to which these (mis)conceptions, under the same or different guises, have survived into the 21st century.
This according to “When hearts beat like native drums: Music and the sexual dimensions of the notions of savage and civilized in Tarzan and his mate, 1934” by Clara Henderson (Africa today XLVIII/4 [winter 2001] pp. 90–124).
Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the apes, the first Tarzan story, is 100 years old this year! Above, an early dust jacket for this classic; below, the original 1934 trailer for Tarzan and his mate.
BONUS: The film’s notorious river scene, for which the Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim temporarily replaced Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane.
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Filed under Africa, Curiosities, Film music
Music plays a vital yet rarely noticed role in political ads, as explored by Jason Lee Oakes in “Obama’s One chance: Winning over hearts and ears” (IASPM-US 16 May 2012). Applying musicological analysis to several campaign advertisements—including President Obama’s controversial ad focused on the killing of Osama Bin Laden under his command—Oakes considers how musical techniques are used to provoke emotional responses to political issues, or to create issues where none formerly existed.
Below, the advertisement in question. Above, the first U.S. presidential campaign song, which circulated as a broadsheet during the successful 1824 campaign of Andrew Jackson (click to enlarge).
Related article: 9/11 music
Filed under Politics, Popular music
In 2011 Peter Lang launched the series Liturgical studies, edited by Silvia A. Sweeney.
The inaugural volume, Embodying the feminine in the dances of the world’s religions by Angela M. Yarber, explores bharata nāṭyam, a classical Indian genre stemming from the devadāsī tradition; kabuki onnagata, Japanese male enactors of female-likeness; the Mevlevi Order of America, which allows women to train as whirling dervishes; and Gurit Kadman, who created folk dances for Jewish women and men.
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Filed under Dance, New series
Theaterencyclopedie, a free online resource published in 2012 by the Theater Instituut Nederland, includes a complete database of all theatrical performances in the Netherlands since 1900, along with hundreds of biographies of singers, actors, and directors.
Audio and video clips are also included. Musical productions—opera, cabaret, and musical theater—are well represented.
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Filed under Dramatic arts, Opera, Resources
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