Phillips Family Diaries, 1955-2000

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Summary

Title:
Phillips Family Diaries
Dates:
1955-2000
Creators:
Phillips, Burrill, 1907-1988, Phillips, Alberta, 1907-1979, Basart, Ann Phillips, and Basart, Robert, 1926-1993
Extent:
2.5 Linear Feet (2 cartons)
Language:
English and Primarily English with some Spanish and French.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Phillips Family Diaries, ARCHIVES PHILLIPS 1, Music Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection of 40 volumes features 25 dated diaries, logs, and notebooks written by composer Burrill Phillips, documenting a large portion of the last 20 years of his life. Addressing day to day activities and concerns of life in western New York and in Berkeley, California, as well as travel, entries are only intermittently concerned with musical activities and composition, except for volumes described as such. Six volumes of diaries and writings by his wife, lyricist Alberta Phillips, and nine volumes by their daughter Ann Phillips Basart, both overlap and supplement the period covered by those of Burrill Phillips. One volume begins with entries by the husband of Ann Phillips Basart, composer Robert Basart. The collection does not contain manuscript or printed musical notation.

Biographical / historical:

Burrill Leroy Phillips, composer and pianist, was born in Omaha, NE, on November 9, 1907 and died in Berkeley, CA on June 22, 1988. His theory and composition teachers were Edwin Stringham at the Denver College of Music (1928–1931) and Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned a BM in 1932 and an MM in 1933. He was a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music (1933–1949, 1965–1966), the University of Illinois (1949–1964), the Juilliard School (1968–1969), and Cornell University (1972–1973), as well as served as visiting composer at other universities and as Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Barcelona (1960–1961). His early compositions were considered to have been written in a distinctly American idiom.

Burrill Phillips married Alberta Mayfield (born in Denver, CO, on August 23, 1907 and died in Branchport, NY on March 17, 1979) in Denver, CO on November 17, 1928. She later served as librettist and lyricist for several of his vocal compositions. Their daughter, Ann Phillips Basart, was born in Denver, CO, on August 26, 1931, and became known for a distinguished career as music librarian at UC Berkeley (1960-1961, 1970-1990), and as editor and publisher. She was raised in Los Angeles by her maternal grandparents who named her Ann Todd Mayfield. As Ann E. Todd, she was a child actress featured in more than twenty films. In 1954 she graduated from University of California, Los Angeles in Music History and continued her studies at UC Berkeley, earning an MLS in 1958 and MA in 1960.

Ann Mayfield married Robert David Basart on January 29, 1955 in Alameda County, California. Robert Basart was born in Watertown, SD, November 17, 1926 and died in Berkeley, CA, February 7, 1993. He studied at the University of Colorado, Stanford University, and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned an MA in composition in 1958 and a PhD in 1970.

Sources:

Ann Basart. "Basart, Robert." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 6, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2087199.

Mimi Tashiro. "Basart, Ann." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 6, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2083817.

Ann P. Basart. "Phillips, Burrill." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 6, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/21575.

Custodial history:

Collection purchased by John Shepard in September 2016 from Hackenberg Booksellers, El Cerrito, CA, who had acquired the collection earlier that same year from Andrew Langer, Bookseller, in Berkeley. Langer had picked up the diaries the previous year during an estate sale of contents from the Basart family home in Berkeley.

Arrangement:

Volumes are arranged by principal author in three series (I. Alberta Phillips, II. Burrill Phillips, III. Ann Phillips Basart) and chronologically under each author.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Manuel Erviti
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2017-09-20 16:04:32 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Some materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted to the Curator of Music Collections, Hargrove Music Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Phillips Family Diaries, ARCHIVES PHILLIPS 1, Music Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Location of this collection:
Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US
Contact:
(510) 642-2623
music_reference@berkeley.edu
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