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.

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.

3.5 linear ft. (7 boxes)

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.

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.