Re: Mandolin music library
I've been looking into this for years. What's really needed is an academic home for the American mandolin -- a university or college with the resources and interest to take on the cataloging and preservation of the early American mandolin music, and the instruments for which that music was written. I've long hoped that some academic institution will recognize the historical and musical value of this project, and perhaps begin a college-level mandolin program with both an international and historical perspective -- a place where serious musicians can study mandolin through its various, entwined "classical" and "folk" traditions. A handful of programs (Belmont, NEC, ETSU, Berklee) have addressed various parts of this vision, but what's needed is an institution with international and historical perspective, a commitment to put mandolin on a par with other instruments, and some serious library resources.
Meanwhile, who knows what nuggets are languishing in private collections like yours? Several orchestras around the country have extensive archives, as do several of our senior American classical mandolinists. I have about 30 boxes passed down from various collectors, conductors, and other musicians. So far there's no central, academic or professional library, AFAIK, taking on the job of cataloging this music. Part of the challenge is that huge quantities of low-quality sheet music were churned out to meet the demand for Golden Era mandolin, so we're left sorting a haystack's worth of fluff to find a few needles' worth of thoughtfully-composed music. And how to really identify which is which, aside from cataloging all of it? Sometimes, it's all dismissed as nostalgia, of little musical value today. Of course, we really can't measure that without sorting through, and giving audiences a chance to listen and decide!
Exploring Classical Mandolin (Berklee Press, 2015)
Progressive Melodies for Mandocello (KDP, 2019) (2nd ed. 2022)
New Solos for Classical Mandolin (Hal Leonard Press, 2020)
2021 guest artist, mandocello: Classical Mandolin Society of America
Bookmarks