Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- McPhee, Colin
- Abstract:
- This collection consists primarily of manuscripts, reproductions, and published scores of orchestral, chamber, choral, and film music by composer Colin McPhee. Also included are several transcriptions of Indonesian gamelan music.
- Extent:
- 3.5 linear ft. (7 boxes)
- Language:
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Colin McPhee Musical Manuscripts (Collection PASC-M 25). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection consists primarily of manuscripts, reproductions, and published scores of orchestral, chamber, choral, and film music by composer Colin McPhee, including some set of parts. Also included are several transcriptions of Indonesian gamelan music. In addition this collection contains a number of publications, including copies of McPhee’s book A House in Bali.
For further material documenting McPhee’s time in Bali, see the Colin McPhee Collection (1975.06) in the Ethnomusicology Archive, UCLA, which includes photographs, field notes, papers and correspondence, and recordings of Balinese music.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Composer Colin McPhee was born March 15, 1900 in Montreal, Canada, and graduated from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland in 1921. He studied composition and piano in Paris in the 1920s, then moved to New York in 1926. Spurred by recordings he heard of Balinese gamelan music, McPhee traveled to the Indonesian island in 1931 with his then-wife, the anthropologist Jane Belo. The couple would spend much of the decade there, along with stays in New York and Mexico City. While in Bali, McPhee conducted an intense study of traditional gamelan music. In 1936 he composed the Balinese-influenced toccata Tabuh-Tabuhan. McPhee returned to New York in 1939, where he would spend most of the next two decades continuing to compose concert and Balinese-inspired works. From 1960 to 1963, McPhee was a professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA. He died on January 7, 1964, in Los Angeles.
In addition to composing, McPhee wrote books, articles, and music criticism, much of it about Bali. His books A House in Bali (1946) and Music in Bali (1966) have gained him recognition as an authority on Balinese culture.
Historical information about individual works is from Oja, Carol J. Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), Appendix A: Catalogue of the Music of Colin McPhee.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Shirley Hawkins, 1973.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection is arranged into the following series:
- Series 1. Compositions
- Series 2. Gamelan transcriptions
- Series 3. Music for documentary films
- Series 4. Musical works by others
- Series 5. Publications
- Series 6. Ephemera.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Colin McPhee Musical Manuscripts (Collection PASC-M 25). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988