Orchestra Life
:: Music Librarian
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College & Conservatory Performance Librarians |
Most of my career as a performance librarian has been spent working in colleges and conservatories. Over the years I have seen more schools create these jobs as they come to realize the importance of having a librarian specialist...
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A Glance into the World of a Music Festival Orchestra Librarian |
With all this music and bustle of activity [at a summer music festival like Aspen], you may ask how it's ever possible for an orchestra librarian to get it all done. Well, I ask myself the same question almost every day...
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The Role of the Orchestra Librarian as Music Copyist |
As orchestra librarians, we are expected to deal with printed music in a variety of ways. We correct errors, fix bad page turns, mark in bowings and perform many other tasks. But what if the printed music doesn't exist?
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MOLA (Major Orchestra Librarians' Association) Conference Agenda, 2009 |
The "theme" for this conference was special programming. Nearly every performing organization does some type of "special" concert, whether it be an opera gala, an opening night ball, or Pops concerts with dramatic elements..
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MOLA (Major Orchestra Librarians' Association) Conference in Nashville, 2008 |
Founded only a quarter-century ago, MOLA quickly has become a truly international organization, with 248 member organizations representing 420 librarians on six continents. Nearly one hundred member librarians traveled to Nashville from as far away as Spain, Sweden, New Zealand, and Germany.
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Training to Become an Orchestra Librarian |
If someone wants to become an orchestra librarian, s/he need to take as many advanced music courses as possible, and s/he needs to get a great deal of orchestral experience - playing, marking parts, doing the library tasks. Working knowledge of German, Italian and French is important, as are strong computer skills. Of course, it won't do a person any good to take all of those classes aiming for an orchestra librarian position if s/he is not very organized, extremely detail-oriented, and has good people skills.
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Copyright Issues |
One of the most common violations is people using photocopied sets they've made without the permission of the publisher. Maybe they wanted a set for future reference and they "forgot" to tell the publisher about using it, but when the publisher finds out, they can send a nasty letter plus an invoice for what the rental would have been, or they could impose a fine.
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Agenda for the 2007 MOLA Conference |
The 2007 Major Orchestra Librarians' Association (MOLA) conference runs from Friday, April 13th to Monday, April 16th in Chicago. Take a look at the agenda.
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Dark Chocolate Works! Building a Good Relationship With Your Orchestra Librarian |
In Karen Schnackenberg's article, Who Is That Orchestra Librarian, we read about the diverse backgrounds and variety of skills that go into making an orchestral librarian. As Karen points out, librarians may have training in performance, history, musicology, orchestration, or any combination of the above. I would add music education, music copying, and even retail music sales to those backgrounds.[l=http://www.polyphonic.org/admin/articles.php?id=28][/l]
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The Parts We Play |
There has been a great deal of interest in, and speculation about, the future presentation of orchestral scores and parts. Will players still read from paper, a PDF-like file on a screen, or some other medium as yet unimagined? Publishers and librarians have long engaged in lively discussion about how we will get there - to this "future" - whatever it may be. Technological advances have revolutionized how music is written, published and distributed. This new technology, while offering new opportunities and possibilities for creativity, can cause composers, publishers, orchestra librarians, conductors and players real headaches.
To envision where we may need to go with "printed" music, it's important to understand where we are today.
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Errata and the Orchestra Librarian |
We've all experienced rehearsals that stop while a player and the conductor consult about which note is correct: the one in the part or the one in the score. For a professional orchestra, time is money, and that one wrong note can cost valuable rehearsal minutes.
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Your Librarian and Your Orchestra: |
It is easy enough for a librarian to say that the main job is to have the right music on the right desk at the right time. Many factors can impact a performance, but the librarian's role is to make sure that the printed music enables the performer to do his/her best job.
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Orchestra Librarian Column Introduction |
In this area of the website we will focus on issues relating to the orchestra library and librarians.
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Who Is That Orchestra Librarian? |
When I was a player in the Oklahoma Symphony during the 1980s, my colleagues and I were often asked the question "What do you do for a living?" This was a particularly astonishing question, because it usually came from our own Board members, who were very well meaning but misunderstood the life of the professional musician. We would carefully explain that, although the orchestra didn't perform in the summer (much like teachers not teaching), during the fall, winter and spring, this was our full-time job. This was our living.