Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Rich (Alan) Papers
LSC.1975
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Alan Rich papers
Creator:
Rich, Alan
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1975
Physical Description:
12.2 Linear Feet
(10 document boxes, 5 record cartons, 7 flat boxes, 2 index card boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1923-2010
Date (bulk): 1960-2010
Abstract: Alan Rich was an American music critic, based in New York and Los Angeles, who began his professional career in the 1950s
and continued writing until his death in 2010. The collection includes research files, correspondence and memorial tributes,
promotional scores and recordings sent to Rich from composers and music publications, an extensive collection of both drafts
and periodical clippings of his writings, and recordings from the "Music Room" salons he co-hosted in Los Angeles with philanthropist
Betty Freeman.
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.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS DIGITAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital materials. For information about
the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the 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.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the 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.
[Identification of item], Alan Rich papers (Collection 1975). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
The collection was donated to UCLA by Alan Rich through the Alan Rich Trust, executed by trustee Raymond Richards and transferred
in 2010.
Processed by Andrea Moore and Mike D'Errico in 2012 in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance
from Jillian Cuellar. The processing of this collection was generously supported by
Arcadia
funds.
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.
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:
9970150183606533
Alan Rich was born in Boston on June 17, 1924. While attending Harvard in the 1940s, he began working as an assistant music
critic for
The Boston Herald. Upon graduating, he discarded his original plans to attend medical school and instead enrolled at the University of California,
Berkeley. Under the mentorship of the musicologist Joseph Kerman, he earned a master's degree in Music in 1952. After graduating,
he went to Europe on fellowship for a year, and then returned to Berkeley to become the music director of Pacifica Radio,
station KPFA.
KPFA later sent Rich to New York to work at radio station WBAI; this move led to Rich becoming a music critic for
The New York Times in 1961. He moved to
The Herald Tribune in 1963, and later wrote for
New York magazine from 1968 to 1981. Toward the end of his tenure there he contributed to
New West magazine, a spin-off of
New York that was soon renamed
California. Rich moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and became music editor of
Newsweek. He also wrote for
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner and
LA Weekly. Rich used these national and local publications as a platform for a campaign to put Los Angeles' musical culture in the
spotlight. He became a crucial advocate for contemporary music as he continued to make the case for LA's significance as a
musical hub throughout his career.
Rich's music column was cut from
LA Weekly in 2008 as a cost-cutting measure after a sixteen year run. This led Rich to begin a blog, "So I've Heard," named after the
title of a 2006 compilation of his reviews,
So I've Heard: Notes of a Migratory Music Critic. He also continued to contribute reviews to
Bloomberg News,
Variety, and others.
Rich was the author of several books, among them
Careers and Opportunities in Music (1964),
The Lincoln Center Story (1984),
American Pioneers: Ives to Cage and Beyond (1995), and the "Play-by-Play" series of books and CDs, with volumes devoted to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky (1995).
He passed away in April 2010, at the age of 85.
The collection includes research files, correspondence and memorial tributes, promotional scores and recordings sent to Rich
from composers and music publications, an extensive collection of both drafts and periodical clippings of his writings, and
recordings from the "Music Room" salons he co-hosted in Los Angeles with philanthropist Betty Freeman.
Arranged in six series:
- 1. Writings, 1950-2010
- 2. Subject, 1936-2004
- 3. Personal, 1932-2010
- 4. Books, 1923-2008
- 5. Scores, 1961-2009
- 6. Media, 1950-2009
All series are arranged alphabetically.
The bulk of Alan Rich's books from his personal library were transferred to the Music Library for individual cataloging. They
are available via the UCLA Library Catalog.
Related materials providing additional information on philanthropist Betty Freeman, with whom Rich worked closely, can be
found in the Betty Freeman Papers (MSS 227) at Mandeville Special Collections Library, UC San Diego.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Music critics -- United States -- Archives.
Rich, Alan -- Archives
- Collection Overview
-
Collection Details
- Restrictions on Access
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
- Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
- Preferred Citation
- Provenance/Source of Acquisition
- Processing Information
- UCLA Catalog Record ID
- Biography/History
- Scope and Content
- Organization and Arrangement
- Separated Material
- Related Material