String players celebrate new music collection
Some of the 2,680 pieces for violin recently donated to the Lewis Music Library were performed by student musicians in the library on Friday, April 11.
The music was donated by Lois Craig, former associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, whose late husband, Stephen Prokopoff, was an accomplished violinist. Much of the music is from the 20th century, although some dates as far back as the 18th. A donation by Dorothea and Bradford (S.B. 1949) Endicott will enable the library to catalog and bind this music so it can be circulated.
Professor Marcus Thompson, director of the MIT Chamber Music Society, called the collection "potentially one of the most significant in the Boston area." Once the music is inventoried and cataloged, he said, it will be "a valuable resource for teachers, recitalists, historians and collectors alike. That value can only grow as artists explore the depths and bring to the surface, through live performances and recordings, the jewels they find." Friday's concert featured music by Boulanger, Schumann, Ysaye, Villa-Lobos and Kreisler.
Harbison to appear on WGBH arts program tonight
Institute Professor John Harbison is featured on WGBH-TV's "Greater Boston Arts" tonight (April 16) at 8:30 p.m. on channel 2. The program examines the new cadenzas Harbison has written for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24. Senior Lecturer David Deveau will premiere the new cadenzas on piano with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston on Sunday, May 18. The show interviews Harbison, Professor Robert Levin of Harvard University (who improvises a cadenza for the same concerto), and Deveau, who performs and talks about the Harbison cadenzas. See http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/bostonarts for more information and a schedule for repeat airings.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 16, 2003.
