Music of the United States of America (MUSA)

FAIN: RQ-260882-18

American Musicological Society, Inc. (New York, NY 10012-1502)
Andrew Kuster (Project Director: December 2017 to present)

Preparation for publication of five volumes in the series Music of the United States of America. (36 months)

Music of the United States of America (MUSA) is a series of scholarly editions of music that aims to represent the depth and diversity of our nation’s heritage by publishing musical works of exemplary artistic quality and historical significance, targeting scholars, performers, students, and the general public. MUSA seeks to expand the art of critical editing beyond classical concert music to include new genres and styles previously unaddressed by the discipline, including music created by women and minorities, and other composers historically excluded from academic research. MUSA is a project of the American Musicological Society (AMS), the premier organization in the United States devoted to musical scholarship, and is guided by its Committee on the Publication of American Music (COPAM), which serves as MUSA’s editorial board. Each MUSA edition is exhaustively researched by expert Volume Editors and typically is newly engraved by the award-winning music publisher A-R Editions.

Associated Products

Music of the United States of America, Volume 28: George Whitefield Chadwick, The Padrone (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, Volume 28: George Whitefield Chadwick, The Padrone
Author: George Whitefield Chadwick
Editor: Marianne Betz
Abstract: George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931), a Massachusetts native identified with the so-called second “New England School” of composers, is among the most important and creative American composers in the generation that bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Trained in part in Germany, he spent much of his working life educating other musicians at the New England Conservatory of Music, which he led from 1897 until his death. Chadwick fashioned a compelling individual musical voice rooted in a Euro-American musical idiom; his orchestral and chamber music was performed with some frequency in his own day and has been revived in ours. His opera The Padrone, set to a libretto by David K. Stevens (based on an idea from Chadwick himself), was composed in 1912; it was strongly influenced by the “verismo” operas of the time (such as Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Puccini’s Tosca), which attempted to bring to opera the naturalism of such late nineteenth-century writers as Zola and Ibsen. The Padrone is set in an American city (presumably the North End of Boston) in the “present.” The story, a tragic tale in two acts with an orchestral interlude, revolves around a ruthless member of the Italian community (“the padrone”) and his exploitation of more recently arrived immigrants. Chadwick composed The Padrone for submission to the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, but the opera was rejected, probably because of its gritty realism, and was never staged during Chadwick’s lifetime. (The Padrone exists only in manuscript form and has never been published; its only public performance so far took place in 1997.) In contrast to American operas of its generation that dramatize myths and legends from the ancient past, The Padrone brings a modern story to the stage, set to dramatic music.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/padrone/oclc/1012346130&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/chadwick-the-padrone-mu28-a082.html
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc.
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9780895798558
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Music of the United States of America, Volume 30: David Tudor: Solo for Piano by John Cage, Second Realization, part 1 (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, Volume 30: David Tudor: Solo for Piano by John Cage, Second Realization, part 1
Editor: John Holzaepfel
Abstract: "When I think of music, I think of you and vice-versa," John Cage told David Tudor in the summer of 1951. Looking back years later, Cage said that every work he composed in the ensuing two decades was composed for Tudor—even if it was not written for the piano, Tudor’s nominal instrument. The collaboration of Cage and Tudor reached an apex in the Solo for Piano from Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58). None of Cage’s previous works had employed more than a single type of notation. In contrast, the Solo for Piano consists of eighty-four notational types, ranging from standard line-and-staff notation to extravagant musical graphics. The notational complexity of the Solo for Piano led Tudor to write out—or realize—a performance score, from which he played at the premiere of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra in May 1958. The next spring, when Cage requested music to complement his ninety-minute lecture “Indeterminacy,” Tudor created a second realization, for which he devised a new temporal structure to implement Cage’s notations. This edition of Tudor’s second realization of the Solo for Piano presents Tudor’s performance score in the spatial-temporal layout of its proportional notation. An introductory essay discusses the early collaborations of Cage and Tudor, as well as the genesis, creative process, and performance history of the Solo for Piano. The critical commentary examines each of Tudor’s methods of realization; which notations from Cage’s score Tudor selected and why; how Tudor interpreted Cage’s often ambiguous performance instructions; how Tudor distributed the resulting sounds temporally; and the ways in which Tudor’s realization fulfills, transcends, and sometimes contravenes the instructions of Cage’s score.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/solo-for-piano-by-john-cage-second-realization-part-1-essay-and-critical-commentary/oclc/1142969616&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org link
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/tudor-solo-for-piano-by-cage-2nd-realization-part-1-mu30a-a086.html
Secondary URL Description: A-R Editions link
Access Model: printed book for purchase, subscription for digital access
Publisher: A-R Editions
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781987203028
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Music of the United States of America, Volume 30: David Tudor: Solo for Piano by John Cage, Second Realization, part 2 (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, Volume 30: David Tudor: Solo for Piano by John Cage, Second Realization, part 2
Editor: Edited by John Holzaepfel
Abstract: "When I think of music, I think of you and vice-versa," John Cage told David Tudor in the summer of 1951. Looking back years later, Cage said that every work he composed in the ensuing two decades was composed for Tudor—even if it was not written for the piano, Tudor’s nominal instrument. The collaboration of Cage and Tudor reached an apex in the Solo for Piano from Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58). None of Cage’s previous works had employed more than a single type of notation. In contrast, the Solo for Piano consists of eighty-four notational types, ranging from standard line-and-staff notation to extravagant musical graphics. The notational complexity of the Solo for Piano led Tudor to write out—or realize—a performance score, from which he played at the premiere of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra in May 1958. The next spring, when Cage requested music to complement his ninety-minute lecture “Indeterminacy,” Tudor created a second realization, for which he devised a new temporal structure to implement Cage’s notations. This edition of Tudor’s second realization of the Solo for Piano presents Tudor’s performance score in the spatial-temporal layout of its proportional notation. An introductory essay discusses the early collaborations of Cage and Tudor, as well as the genesis, creative process, and performance history of the Solo for Piano. The critical commentary examines each of Tudor’s methods of realization; which notations from Cage’s score Tudor selected and why; how Tudor interpreted Cage’s often ambiguous performance instructions; how Tudor distributed the resulting sounds temporally; and the ways in which Tudor’s realization fulfills, transcends, and sometimes contravenes the instructions of Cage’s score.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/solo-for-piano-by-john-cage-second-realization-part-2-music-edition/oclc/1152318729&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org link
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/tudor-solo-for-piano-by-cage-2nd-realization-part-2-mu30b-a087.html
Secondary URL Description: A-R Editions link
Access Model: printed book for purchase, subscription for digital access
Publisher: A-R Editions
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781987203042
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Music of the United States of America, Volume 31: Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring (Original Ballet Version) (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, Volume 31: Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring (Original Ballet Version)
Editor: Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett
Editor: Aaron Sherber
Abstract: Appalachian Spring is perhaps the most popular work by Aaron Copland (1900–1990). Composed as a ballet for the renowned choreographer Martha Graham (1894–1991), it was the result of a close collaboration between Copland and Graham, and the music quickly took on a life of its own. However, the best known versions of the score, those most frequently recorded and heard in concert, differ in form and musical content from the original ballet, which was scored for a chamber ensemble of thirteen instruments and premiered by the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Library of Congress on 30 October 1944. This edition presents the first completed engraving of the original version of Appalachian Spring, providing musicians and scholars access to the score as it has been performed for more than 75 years by the Graham Company. On each page of the score, the editors have included stills from the 1958 film of the ballet, with Graham dancing the lead role, in order to highlight the connection between music and dance. An introductory essay explores the creation of the work, the musical structure, the origins of and differences among multiple versions of the score, and the continued significance and influence of Copland’s music. The critical commentary draws on manuscript and published sources, as well as Graham Company performance practice, to illuminate editorial decisions. The edition also includes appendices that present a comparison of historical tempi, markings from the Graham tradition for augmenting the orchestration, and a selected discography of different versions of the score.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/appalachian-spring-original-ballet-version/oclc/1157130708&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org link
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/copland-appalachian-spring-mu31-a088.html
Secondary URL Description: A-R Editions link
Access Model: printed book for purchase, subscription for digital access
Publisher: A-R Editions
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Other
ISBN: 9781987204582
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

Claude V. Palisca Award
Date: 11/12/2021
Organization: American Musicological Society
Abstract: The Claude V. Palisca Award honors each year a scholarly edition or translation in the field of musicology published during the previous year in any language and in any country by a scholar who is a member of the AMS or a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or the United States, deemed by a committee of scholars to best exemplify the highest qualities of originality, interpretation, logic and clarity of thought, and communication. “Previous year” refers to the copyright year as found on the copyright page of the book. Three categories of musicological works are eligible for the Palisca award: translations into English of musicologically significant texts; editions of music; or editions of musicologically significant texts.

Music of the United States of America, Volume 28P: George Whitefield Chadwick: The Padrone (Piano-Vocal Score) (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, Volume 28P: George Whitefield Chadwick: The Padrone (Piano-Vocal Score)
Editor: Marianne Betz
Abstract: George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931), a Massachusetts native identified with the so-called second “New England School” of composers, is among the most important and creative American composers in the generation that bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Trained in part in Germany, he spent much of his working life educating other musicians at the New England Conservatory of Music, which he led from 1897 until his death. Chadwick fashioned a compelling individual musical voice rooted in a Euro-American musical idiom; his orchestral and chamber music was performed with some frequency in his own day and has been revived in ours. His opera The Padrone, set to a libretto by David K. Stevens (based on an idea from Chadwick himself), was composed in 1912; it was strongly influenced by the “verismo” operas of the time (Such as Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Puccini’s Tosca), which attempted to bring to opera the naturalism of such late nineteenth-century writers as Zola and Ibsen. The Padrone is set in an American city (presumably the North End of Boston) in the “present.” The story, a tragic tale in two acts with an orchestral interlude, revolves around a ruthless member of the Italian community (“the padrone”) and his exploitation of more recently arrived immigrants. Chadwick composed The Padrone for submission to the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, but the opera was rejected, probably because of its gritty realism, and was never staged during Chadwick’s lifetime. (Prior to this edition, The Padrone existed only in manuscript form and had never been published; its only public performance so far took place in 1997.) In contrast to American operas of its generation that dramatize myths and legends from the ancient past, The Padrone brings a modern story to the stage, set to music of dramatic power and superb craftsmanship.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/padrone/oclc/1199342195&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org link
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/publications/musa/chadwick-the-padrone-piano-vocal-score-mu28p-a082p.html
Secondary URL Description: A-R Editions link
Access Model: printed book for purchase, subscription for digital access
Publisher: A-R Editions
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781987205169
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Music of the United States of America, volume 32: An American Singing Heritage: Songs from the Britis-Irish-American Oral Tradition as Recorded in the Early Twentieth Century (Book)
Title: Music of the United States of America, volume 32: An American Singing Heritage: Songs from the Britis-Irish-American Oral Tradition as Recorded in the Early Twentieth Century
Author: Norm Cohen
Author: Carson Cohen
Author: Anne Dhu McLucas
Editor: Norm Cohen
Editor: Carson Cohen
Editor: Anne Dhu McLucas
Abstract: This edition brings together representative transcriptions of folk songs and ballads in the British-Irish-American oral tradition that have enjoyed widespread familiarity throughout twentieth-century America. Within are the one hundred folk songs that most frequently occurred in a methodical survey of Roud’s Folk Song Index, catalogues of commercial early country (or "hillbilly") recordings, and relevant archival collections. The editors selected sources for transcriptions in a broad range of singing styles and representing many regions of the United States. The selections attempt to avoid the biases of previous collections and provide a fresh group of examples, many heretofore unseen in print. The sources for the transcriptions are recordings of traditional musicians from the 1920s through the early 1940s drawn from (1) commercial recordings of "hillbilly" musicians, and (2) field recordings in the collection of the Library of Congress’s Archive of American Folk Song, now part of the Archive of Folk Culture. Each transcription is accompanied by a brief contextualizing essay discussing the song’s history and influence, recording and performance information (whenever available), and an examination of the tune. The edition begins with a substantive essay about the history of folk song recordings and folk song scholarship, and the nature of traditional vocal music in the United States.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/american-singing-heritage-songs-from-the-british-irish-american-oral-tradition-as-recorded-in-the-early-twentieth-century/oclc/1290319838&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org link
Secondary URL: https://www.areditions.com/an-american-singing-heritage-mu32-a089.html
Secondary URL Description: A-R Editions link
Access Model: printed book for purchase, subscription for digital access
Publisher: A-R Editions, Inc.
Type: Scholarly Edition
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 9781987207286
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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