Archive of World Music Collection
- Access
- Collections
- The Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music
- Laura Boulton Collection
- The James A. Rubin Collection of South Indian Classical Music
The Archive of World Music, a collection of the Loeb Music Library, was established in 1976 by Professor John Ward and in 1992, with the appointment of Kay Kaufman Shelemay as Harvard's first senior professor of ethnomusicology, moved to the Loeb Music Library to become one of its special collections. It is devoted to the acquisition of archival field recordings of musics world-wide as well as to commercial sound recordings, videos, and DVDs of ethnomusicological interest.
The Archive quickly attracted major collections including the James Rubin Collection of Indian Classical Music (probably the largest collection of Indian classical music in the U.S.), the Kay Kaufman Shelemay Collection of Ethiopic Musics, the Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music (probably the largest outside of Turkey), and the Laura Boulton Collection of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox Chant. Collection development has focused primarily on the Middle East, Asia (broadly understood), and Africa.
Whereas the content of the Archive continues to develop with a special emphasis on Asia and the Middle East, it is currently in the position to further develop the collection with recordings from Mexico, Central and South America, as well as from all around the globe.
Substantial grant funding from the Laura Boulton Foundation, the Sema Vakf Foundation, and the Harvard University Library Digital Initiative has provided funds for preservation and access to the Archive's collections and for building substantial infrastructure to support long-term digital preservation.
Access
The Archive of World Music is a closed-stack, non-circulating collection whose materials are available for use during the normal business Hours of the Loeb Music Library. It is accessible to patrons with a Harvard ID. Requests for recordings by qualified researchers and scholars may be made at any time, but one week is required for preparation of materials. In order to preserve fragile and rare recordings, user copies must be made. Visiting researchers are asked to submit requests in advance of their visit in order to make the best use of their time at the Archive.
Materials in the Archive are cataloged in HOLLIS, and are subject-searchable by country, by keyword, or by author/title searches. Finding aids to special collections in the Archive are available in OASIS, Harvard's Online Archival Search Information System.
Collections
The Archive has developed important collections from Asia and the Middle East, and it holds very diverse archival material: wide-ranging Chinese songs acquired by Harvard Professor Emeritus Rulan Pian, extensive field recordings from the 1980s by Martha Forsyth of traditional Bulgarian songs, field recordings of Tvisöngur (male polyphony in Iceland), and !Kung field recordings, among others. Numerous recordings of Indonesian music have been acquired, primarily on commercial sound cassettes.
The Archive has a growing collection of recordings from the Middle East, including the Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music, and a substantial number of recordings from the Arab world. The James A. Rubin Collection of South Indian Classical Music, more than 2,000 hours of recordings, features some of the finest musicians of the 20th century.
The Archive also houses much of the sound recordings content (with the exception of some film soundtracks) of the Baroness Marie-Thérèse Ullens de Schooten Archive. A unique collection, its primarily visual content resides at the Documentation Center of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard's Fine Arts Library. Baroness Ullens spent several months every year between 1951 and 1972 in Iran, documenting the Qashqa'i and the Bakhtiari peoples, as well as the Kurds and Türkmen, and Sufi dervishes in photography, film, and sound recordings. The recordings herein range from live recordings to radio recordings of the time.
The Archive is also home to the Laura Boulton Collection of Byzantine and Orthodox Musics. Comprised of sound recordings, accompanying documentation, and numerous ancillary materials, the collection represents Boulton's field work throughout the Eastern Orthodox world during the 1950s and 1960s, much of which was undertaken jointly with Harvard's Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. The collection includes related Armenian, Russian, Coptic, and Ethiopian music materials as well.
The Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music
The Sema Vakf Collection may be the largest collection of Turkish music in the world. It consists of more than 1,000 audio and video field and commercial recordings, more than 9,000 written musical notations, 300 books and dissertations, and musical instruments collected by the Turkish-American connoisseur of Ottoman classical music Altan Güzey.
The collection includes the entire private archive of Ismâil Baha Sürelsan, a Turkish composer and ethnomusicologist who has devoted more than 60 years to performing Turkish classical music. Among the other treasures of the collection are recordings of the singer Allâeddin Yavaşça's mesk, musical lessons held on Sunday afternoons at his home once a month. Some of Yavaşça's own transcriptions of musical works form part of the collection. There are numerous performances by such accomplished artists as Meral Uğurlu, Mes'ûd Cemil, Bekir Sitki, Reha Sağbaş, and Selmâ Sağbaş.
This vakf, or trust, is named for the art of listening (sema), specifically the engaged listening of the connoisseur to wonderful music. Altan Güzey established it for the preservation and perpetuation of classical Turkish music, particularly repertories of court music composed before 1850. The vakf maintains the archive and also supports musical performances and commissioned recordings of Turkish classical music. Its mission is to make musical resources available to scholars and performers interested in the subject. The collection has now been transferred to Harvard and the University currently has more than 600 items.
The Sema Vakf Collection is searchable in the HOLLIS catalog. To see the entire collection, search for author sema vakf collection.
Alternatively, keyword searches by names of performers or performers, first lines of songs or makams will produce more specific results, for instance: search by keyword: uğurlu hicaz
For further information, please e-mail Virginia Danielson, Curator of the Archive of World Music, or e-mail Donna Guerra, Curatorial Assistant.
Laura Boulton Collection
The Archive is home to the Laura Boulton Collection of Byzantine and Orthodox Musics. Comprised of sound recordings, accompanying documentation, and numerous ancillary materials, the Collection represents Boulton's field work throughout the Eastern Orthodox world during the 1950s and 1960s, much of which was undertaken jointly with Harvard's Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. The Collection includes related Armenian, Russian, Coptic, and Ethiopian music materials as well.
A finding aid to the Laura Boulton Collection is available in OASIS, Harvard's Online Archival Search Information System.
The James A. Rubin Collection of South Indian Classical Music
The James A. Rubin Collection consists of almost 1,000 tapes, 400 78 rpm records, more than 20 program books, several other books about Indian music, and 30 spiral-bound notebooks detailing the performances Rubin recorded in India.
The core of the Rubin collection is a set of almost four hundred reels of tape that Rubin recorded on 18 trips to South India between 1964 and 1987. Rubin was a student of the famous singer M.S. Subbulakshmi and as such was in a unique position to record concerts at such prestigious venues as the Madras Music Academy and the Tyagaraja Aradhana festival in Tiruvayaru, Tamil Nadu. He also recorded performances at other concert halls, many private recitals at the artists' homes, and classical music programs broadcast on All India Radio.
Rubin recorded many concerts of Indian music in the Boston area. In 1966 the Pan Orient Arts Foundation arranged a national tour by M.S. Subbulakshmi, and Rubin was able to record every performance in cities across America. Rubin also included recordings sent to him by friends and colleagues. The music in this collection includes renditions of more than 1,000 compositions, both rare and popular, by more than 600 musicians. As such, it is probably the most comprehensive and significant source of Carnatic music recordings in the world today. This collection will add to the more than 100 recordings of Indian music already in the Archive of World Music.
Under the auspices of the Library Digital Initiative, this collection is being made available to scholars and lovers of Indian music. The tapes will be copied in an archival digital format for permanent storage. A finding aid to the James Rubin Collection, containing a complete catalog of all original performances in the collection, is available is OASIS. This document links to visual images of Rubin's field notes and other concert programs. In cases where Harvard University has the artists' permission, audio files of the performances will be available on the Internet.
