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Cloud (David) papers
PASC-M.0232  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Conditions Governing Access
  • Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
  • Conditions Governing Use
  • Preferred Citation
  • Provenance/Source of Acquisition
  • Processing Information
  • UCLA Catalog Record ID
  • Biography/History
  • Scope and Content
  • Organization and Arrangement

  • Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections
    Title: David Cloud papers
    Creator: Cloud, David
    Identifier/Call Number: PASC-M.0232
    Physical Description: 96.0 linear feet (152 boxes, 71 oversize boxes, and 7 shoeboxes)
    Date (inclusive): 1894-1998
    Date (bulk): 1959-1998
    Abstract: David Cloud (1938-1998) was a classical music radio personality in the 1970s and 1980s with KPFK-FM, KUSC-FM, and KCRW-FM in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. In the early 1980s, Cloud came to UCLA as an audio engineer and professor of audio technology. This collection contains papers regarding his radio career, personal interests, and academic career, including many concert programs, concert and musical promotions, and music and record catalogs. The collection also contains broadcast recordings of live concerts and interviews with contemporary classical composers and musicians.
    Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
    Language of Material: Materials are in English.

    Conditions Governing Access

    Portions of collection unprocessed. Material in the LP series is unavailable for access. Please see LSC's Access to Unprocessed Collections Policy  for more information about levels of discovery and access of special collections materials and registering interest in unprocessed collections.
    To request material from this finding aid, even sound recordings, page boxes in the "Papers" series in the catalog record. The "Sound Recordings" series is unprocessed and unavailable.

    Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

    CONTAINS AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed audiovisual materials. Audiovisual materials are not currently available for access, unless otherwise noted in a Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

    Conditions Governing Use

    Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other 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], David Cloud papers (Collection PASC 232-M). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

    Provenance/Source of Acquisition

    Gift of Diane C. Smith and James F. Smith, 2001.

    Processing Information

    Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
    Processed by Nina Scholtz and Katherine Hassan under the supervison of Kelley Bachli in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), 2010.
    We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections. 

    UCLA Catalog Record ID

    UCLA Catalog Record ID: 9948558613606533 

    Biography/History

    David Cloud was born in 1938. He was awarded bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from the University of Alabama. In 1961, he moved to Los Angeles where he remained for the rest of his life. After further graduate study at UCLA, he worked for Northrop Aircraft. During this period he became increasingly engaged with classical and contemporary music.
    In the early 1970s Cloud began working for KPFK-FM, where he produced and programmed classical music. During his radio career, he aired many important modern classical music pieces, helping to popularize them and offering his support to young and up-and-coming composers. Cloud also conducted many significant interviews with musicians and composers of the era. He produced KPFK's broadcasts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Monday Evening Concerts series. In 1978 he moved to KUSC-FM, where he continued to produce broadcasts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and in about 1981 he moved to KCRW-FM. He produced and hosted his signature radio program, Zymurgy, which focused on contemporary classical music and featured many prominent musical guests, at all three radio stations.
    In 1981, Cloud joined UCLA as a recording technician and professor of audio technology. There he wrote an unpublished textbook on the subject.
    David Cloud died in 1998 at the age of 60.

    Scope and Content

    The collection includes correspondence and extensive research about significant twentieth century California composers, especially Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, Dane Rudhyar, and John Cage. It also includes many documents about the radio stations where Cloud worked, including KPFK-FM, KCRW-FM, and KUSC-FM, as well as programming and broadcast notes for prerecorded and live radio programs, and research about radio broadcasting. The collection also includes catalogs of records and music, concert programs and promotions, and documents about other cultural events.
    In addition to papers, the collection contains many audio recordings, including interviews with significant twentieth century composers and performers, including Pierre Boulez, Earle Brown, John Cage, Aaron Copland, David Del Tredici, Philip Glass, Alan Hovhaness, Ernst Krenek, Per Nrgrd, Andr Previn, Steve Reich, Morton Subotnick, Virgil Thomson, and Michael Tippett. The collection also includes recordings of the Los Angeles Philharmonic concerts, Monday Evening Concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cloud's Zymurgy radio program of the 1970s, and a variety of radio transcription service tapes and airchecks from KPFK broadcasts.

    Organization and Arrangement

    Arranged in the following series:
    1. Audio and Video
      • 1.1 Reels
      • 1.2 Pancake Reels
      • 1.3 Beta Videocassettes
      • 1.4 Cassettes
      • 1.5 Gramophone Records
    2. Personal
    3. Teaching and Research Activities
      • 3.1 UCLA Teaching Activities
      • 3.2 Audio Recording, Computers, Astronomy, Mathematics
      • 3.3 Composers, Conductors, Performers
    4. Radio
    5. Cultural Ephemera
    6. Scores
    7. Books