MEDIA CONTACT: Terri Berns
561-297-1164, tberns@fau.edu

FAU Libraries' Special Collections Receives Donations of Rare Music, Bringing Archives to 30,000 Pieces
Ensembles-in-Residence Take Music from 'Shelf to Stage'

BOCA RATON, FL (December 2, 2005) - Florida Atlantic University Libraries' Special Collections & Archives recently received donations of rare and valuable Jewish print music for its Judaica Collection, adding to its more than 30,000 piece archives. Included are the National Yiddish Book Center Collection of approximately 3,000 pieces, the Joe Merman Collection and the Cantors Shabtai Ackerman and Saul Meisel collections. Documents included are original manuscripts, pamphlets, photographic, archival and published materials. These extraordinary resources are located at the S.E. Wimberly Library, 2nd Floor, FAU's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road.

The music collections contain several divisions of classical and ethnic music and include the Judaica Collection, the Richard Beattie Davis Music Collection, the General Sheet Music Collection and the Cantorial Collection. The collections feature a host of scholarly Jewish reference materials, which include Jewish Music encyclopedias, ethnomusicology texts, cantorial instruction manuals, histories and biographies of various classical composers from Russia and Europe.

"The Libraries' music collections are in a period of dynamic growth of historical significance," said Aaron Kula, director of music collections at FAU Libraries and music director of the Klezmer Company Orchestra.

The largest and most recent collection received is the National Yiddish Book Center Collection, which is made up of secular and popular scores, including Yiddish songs, operettas, musical theatre pieces, arts songs and cantorial recital pieces featuring various Yiddish dialects. The works come from the most prominent Jewish music publishers in America that are no longer in existence. The material dates back to the late 1800s and is in remarkably excellent condition. Many renowned Jewish composers are represented, including Secunda, Rumshinsky, Olshanestsky and Thomashefsky.

"What's so exciting about our music collections is that music does not exist in a vacuum. In many ways it reflects the lives of its composers and audiences - every walk of life, every experience, all social and political movements, wealth, poverty, love, and war. The whole range of human experience is reflected in music, from festive folk songs to the most inspiring symphonies," said Dee Cael, department head of special collections.

Recent acquisitions from renowned Cantors Shabtai Ackerman and Saul Meisels, both European trained, contain collections of music dating back to the 1800s. Included are original manuscript compositions by the Cantors, as well as music by Efros, Idelssohn, Baer, Kavetsky, Low, Lewendowski, Zilberts, Rossi and Sulzer. These feature secular vocal and instrumental music, cantorial solos and recitatives, liturgical music for cantor and choir, and Yiddish and Israeli songs.

"One of our singularly rare scores in the collection is the operetta "Golem," a mythical story of a Hassidic tale from the 18th century, dear to Jewish children," said Kula. "It is unique as it contains the sheet music, with cover photos of the actors in costumes. The piano-vocal score was performed in the Yiddish theatre, with pit orchestra musicians, who were required to improvise an orchestration from the violin or piano score.

Composer Joe Merman, who was also a pianist, orchestrator and arranger of popular Jewish and American music, recently donated his entire music collection to the FAU Libraries, 'because he wanted the scores to be performed as well as preserved.' Kula's work with the collections and Klezmer performances inspired Merman and his wife to select FAU for this collection.

The Joe Merman Music Collection includes 1000 pieces of his music, commissioned by radio stations, such as the famous WEVD, and celebrity vocalists who performed in Las Vegas and New York. It is rare to acquire a music collection of a composer who worked for live radio and stage. All scores are unpublished, single-copy manuscripts and represent his diverse talent in writing different combinations of big band charts with strings and for theatre and radio orchestras. Merman's orchestration of "Yiddishe Lied" will be performed by the Klezmer Company Orchestra next year.

"What makes our collection different from other, stagnant library collections is that with Aaron Kula's background as music scholar and performer, he brings the music to life…he takes it from shelf to stage, as it were," said Dr. William Miller, director of FAU Libraries.

The innovative and critically acclaimed Klezmer Company Orchestra, founded in 1997, serves as the Libraries' professional ensemble-in-residence, with a mission to showcase the breadth and depth of repertoire in the Jewish Music Collections. The Klezmer Company Orchestra will perform Jewish Broadway with Orchestra and Chorus on January 21, 2006 and Salsa, Strings and Swing on March 5.

For information about the music collections or donation opportunities, contact Aaron Kula at 561-297-3742 or akula@fau.edu.

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