Exhibitions

Jazz and Media Studies through the Neumann Archive

Ten seminar participants interpret archival holdings from the Neumann jazz collection, including nightclub noisemakers, an inscribed silk scarf, and manuscript music. Topics include the Cotton Club, jazz and propaganda, bossa nova, and jazz careers.

Measured Steps

In the long eighteenth century, dance moved across media, from courtly choreographies to rustic genre scenes. Selections from special and circulating collections show how music, movement, and print found expression together.

Early Pathways of Ashkenazi Sound

Early print sources of Hebrew chant include a 1524 grammar by Münster and psalm settings by Marcello from the 1820s. Both reflect Ashkenazi tradition and are complemented by many later works in the Conservatory Library.

Sounding Muslim in the early Americas

An exhibit of Transatlantic string instruments, scores, books, and prints to accompany the Oberlin performance of Omar. The opera by Rhiannon Giddens ’00 and Michael Abels was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Music of the British Isles 1609–2020

Letters, prints, sound recordings, scores, and books exhibited for participants in the twentieth anniversary conference of the North American British Music Studies Association.

Toni Morrison in Music

Milt Hinton’s inscribed personal copy of Morrison’s novel Jazz (1992), awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is shown alongside musical adaptations of Morrison’s Beloved (1987) by composer Richard Danielpour ’78 and mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves ’85.