Oral History of American Music

Oral History of American Music
Abbreviation OHAM
Formation 1969 (1969)
Location
Official language
English
Director
 Libby Van Cleve
Founder
 Vivian Perlis
Parent organization
 Yale University Library
Website http://web.library.yale.edu/oham/about
Formerly called
 Oral History, American Music

Oral History of American Music (OHAM), founded in 1969, is an oral history project and archive of audio and video recordings consisting mainly of interviews with American classical and jazz musicians.[1] It is a special collection of the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University and housed within the Sterling Memorial Library building in New Haven, Connecticut.[2] It currently holds over 2,000 interviews with more than 900 subjects[3] and is considered the definitive collection of its kind.[4][5]

Background

The creation of Oral History of American Music was a result of musicologist Vivian Perlis's research on the life of American composer Charles Ives, for which she interviewed sixty individuals who had known him personally. During the course of the interviews, Perlis recognized the need for a larger project that would collect and preserve the oral history of American composers, and began the OHAM project in 1969 with that intent.[6] Perlis's interviews with friends, family and colleagues of Ives became OHAM's initial collection, and were later used in her 1974 book, Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History,[7] for which she received the American Musicological Society's Otto Kinkeldey Award—the first time it had been awarded either to a woman or for work on American music.[8] In addition to Perlis's biography of Ives, the project's collection played an instrumental role in a number of other historical works: A Good Dissonance Like a Man, a documentary film about Ives;[9] Aaron Copland's two-volume autobiography Copland: 1900 through 1942 and Copland: Since 1943, co-written with Perlis;[10] and the book Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington, co-written by Perlis and Libby Van Cleve.[4] Perlis served as the project's director until she retired in 2010 and was succeeded by its current director, Van Cleve.[11]

OHAM expanded through interviews conducted by Perlis, Van Cleve and others, as well as by acquisitions of recordings from scholars, radio producers, and concert presenters. Its largest component today is the Major Figures in American Music series, which primarily documents classical composers at varying stages in their careers. OHAM also holds five series of extensive interviews centered around specific persons and topics.[1]

Grants to preserve and digitize OHAM's recordings have come from the Grammy Foundation,[12] Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation,[13] the National Endowment for the Humanities,[14][15][16] and the Save America's Treasures initiative.[17] In 2009, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music donated $500,000 to establish an endowment fund for the organization.[18]

Collections

Oral History of American Music's collection consists primarily of audio and video interviews which are digitized and transcribed. The collection is split into six major components in addition to its acquired materials:

Notable subjects who have received significant attention from Oral History of American Music include:[19]

Access

Free access to Oral History of American Music's recorded interviews and transcripts is available to the public on-site, in the Sterling Memorial Library on the Yale University campus. The project charges a fee for copies of transcripts. Although neither the recordings nor transcripts are accessible online, tables of contents for each interview can be found at the project's website.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 "More About OHAM". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 "OHAM: Access". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  3. ↑ Tommasini, Anthony (9 April 2010). "It's History: Audio, Video and Live Performance". New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  4. 1 2 Wise, Brian. "The Flip Side of American Music". New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  5. ↑ Susan, Wolf (25 May 2006). "Pioneers in Oral History of American Music Will Speak at Mark Twain Library May 31". Redding Pilot.
  6. ↑ "In the Voice of the Artist: An Interview with Vivian Perlis". Musicworks (51): 22–28. Autumn 1991.
  7. ↑ Robinson, Dale (1 February 2004). "Saving a Spoken Soundscape". New Haven Register.
  8. ↑ "Otto Kinkeldey Award Winners". American Musicological Society. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  9. ↑ Fox, John J. (Fall 1981). "Oral History, American Music Celebrates 10th Birthday". New England Association for Oral History Newsletter. 6 (1).
  10. ↑ Elder, Sharon (May 1991). "Let's Talk Music". Yale Alumni Magazine: 16–21.
  11. ↑ "Vivian Perlis announces retirement from Oral History of American Music project". Yale School of Music Website. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  12. ↑ "GRAMMY Foundation Grant Recipients". GRAMMY.org. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  13. ↑ "Research Library Program Grants, 1993-2015". The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  14. ↑ "Grant Details". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  15. ↑ "Grant Details". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  16. ↑ "Grant Details". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  17. ↑ "Save America's Treasure Awards 1999-2010 by State" (PDF). Save America's Treasures. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  18. ↑ "Yale's Oral History of American Music Project Receives Endowment Support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music". YaleNews. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  19. ↑ "OHAM: Major Figures in American Music". Retrieved 31 August 2015.
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