Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 962

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

1.5 linear feet (3 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

American Musicological Society oral history collection, 1996- , Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1996- (inclusive)

Form:

Memoirs and Oral histories (literary works)

Abstract:

The American Musicological Society, founded in 1943 to promote the systematic study of music, actively documents its history, its members, and, more generally, the history of musicology in North America through its oral history project. This collection contains transcripts and written memoirs resulting from oral history project which began in 1996 and continues to the present.

The American Musicological Society was founded in 1934 in order to promote the systematic study of music as a serious academic discipline at a time when the field was still in its infancy. Initially, American music scholars looked to Europe for support, operating through a U.S. branch of the Internationale Musik-Gesellschaft until it was disbanded as a result of World War I. Seeking organizational support on their own continent, and dissatisfied with the emphasis on practical music making at the pre-existing Music Teachers National Association, a number of American scholars formed the New York Musicological Society in 1930, which became the AMS four years later. Otto Kinkeldey, the Society's first president, was also the first officially appointed "professor of musicology" in the U.S., teaching at Cornell University. In 1948, the Society established the still circulating Journal of the American Musicological Society, a three-times-a-year publication that serves to document and disseminate the current developments of music research. In 1951, the American Council of Learned Societies accepted the AMS into their federation, solidifying the AMS's place in American intellectual life. Today the society reports 3,500 individual members and 1,000 institutional subscribers from around the world.

In 1993, when a stroke cut short exectuive director and treasurer Alvin Johnson's tenure, the Society realized that memory would only preserve its history for so long. Efforts were made to capture Dr. Johnson's memoirs on tape and on paper and thus was born the oral history project. The Committee on the History of the Society was formed and more interviews were conducted. The project is still ongoing as of 2014.

This collection, arranged alphabetically by last name, consists mostly of transcripts of interviews with members of the American Musicological Society as part of the Society's oral history project. A few members submitted written statements in lieu of giving an interview. Members were asked to speak about a range of topics including their formal involvement with the Society, any noteworthy issues that arose during their career as a member, and how the Society influenced their research; the history of and future prospects for the field of musicology, generally; as well as their own personal history as a musicologist. Topics addressed were also tailored to the individual in question and any unique perspectives they may have had. For example, Canadian members were asked about the history of musicology in Canada and how the AMS figured into that history. The written statements, lacking an interviewer to control the topics, vary more widely in their focus. For example, Joseph Kerman provides a full auto-biographical sketch while mentioning little about the Society explicitly, and Leonard Meyer argues one very specific point concerning the division of musicologists into a community of theorists, on the one hand, and historians, on the other. Although the content of members' research is discussed occasionally, the bulk of this project is of historical rather than musicological interest per se.