Music at Columbia: The First 100 Years

The Centennial Exhibition, 1996 > Acknowledgements

The Music Department Centennial Exhibition project benefited from helpfulness in many quarters. Department of Music faculty and staff produced files and memorabilia. Professors Emeriti Jack Beeson, Joel Newman, and Howard Shanet drew on their long associations with the department and with both the University’s and the city’s musical life. The exhibition is also a tribute to Columbia’s own rich collections – of art, books, photographs, manuscripts, archival materials – that bring a historical record to life. To the generous, knowledgeable guardians of these collections, the Rare Book and Manuscript curators and staff, Music Librarian Elizabeth Davis, Matthew R. Sutter of the Computer Music Center, Curator of Art Properties Sarah Elliston Weiner and her staff, and especially Curator of Columbiana Hollee Haswell, Assistant Director of the Columbia Archives David Hill and his assistant Jocelyn Wilk,  the curator of this exhibition wishes to express sincere gratitude.

The preparation of the exhibition catalog, published in 2000, posed challenges of a different order. Thanks are due to all who participated in the various tasks associated with confirming facts and updating information: Department of Music Chair George Edwards, succeeded as Chair by Elaine Sisman in 1999, gave the project enthusiastic support, as did Centennial Committee Chair Walter Frisch, Professor Ian Bent, former Department Administrator Victoria Salter, and Administrative Assistant Anne Gefell. Joel Newman contributed editorial guidance. Publication was made possible by a grant from The New York Times Foundation. As always, my husband Daniel M. Young served as an indispensable partner.

The printed catalog assumed its final form in 1999, when Cynthia MacGrath contributed her design services in memory of Daniel M. Young, whose behind-the-scenes partnership had been so important to the entire project. Her tribute honors them both.

This Centennial Exhibition makes no claim to be comprehensive or complete. Rather, it is meant to give a sense of Columbia’s musical life and growth over its first century, of the paths of its exploration, and of the people who served it and helped to set its course.

Mary Monroe

 

 

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