Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Bat-Yaacov, Dena
- Abstract:
- Dena Bat-Yaacov (1932-1981) was a concert pianist specializing in the work of Jewish composers, particularly Charles Alkan. Born in Denver, Colorado, she relocated to Los Angeles in her twenties and spent the rest of her life in that city. The collection includes biographical and promotional materials, including publicity photos, some correspondence, and recital programs spanning her performance career.
- Extent:
- 1.5 Linear Feet (2 boxes and 1 oversize box)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Dena Bat-Yaacov Papers (Collection PASC-M 57). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Collection materials primarily pertain to Bat-Yaacov's performance career, including biographical and promotional materials, publicity photos, and programs. Programs span three decades and include Bat-Yaacov's early student performances, as well as adult ensemble and solo performances. There is a small amount of correspondence, much of it devoted to arranging concert dates. Also included is Bat-Yaacov's research into Jewish heritage and music, and the composer Charles Alkan, which she related as commentary during her recitals. There is a small amount of personal material including high school yearbooks, a scrapbook, and a few family photographs.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Dena Bat-Yaacov was born Dena Heller in Denver, Colorado, on September 9, 1932. She began piano lessons at age seven, the same year she entered Hebrew school, and made her public debut at thirteen. After attending the University of Colorado, where she studied under Howard Waltz, Bat-Yaacov transferred to the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California, where she studied with Sarah Compinsky. Later in her career, she studied with Bernardo Segal, Alvin Davis, Edward Auer, and Earle Voorhies.
In 1952 she married Arnold Shevitz in Los Angeles, and the couple had two daughters before divorcing. In 1965 she married again, to Jerome Millman, a Los Angeles physician. The Millmans divorced in 1972.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bat-Yaacov performed with various chamber music ensembles, as a soloist with orchestras, and in solo recital. She also gave private lessons. After a trip to Israel in 1972, she adopted the name Bat-Yaacov and focused primarily on the work of Jewish composers. Her commentary-recitals were popular with Jewish community groups and at Temple services in Southern California, but she also performed for wider audiences at UCLA and El Camino College. In 1976 she was introduced to the work of French-Jewish composer Charles Alkan, and spent the remainder of her life devoted to mastering Alkan's compositions and raising his public profile through concerts of his work. She began performing all-Alkan recitals in 1979, including concerts at Steinway Hall in Los Angeles and California State University in Fullerton, among others. Dena Bat-Yaacov died in Los Angeles in 1981, at the age of 49.
- Acquisition information:
- Bequest of Dena Bat-Yaacov, 1985.
- 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.
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.
- Arrangement:
-
Collection arranged alphabetically by subject.
- 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.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
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], Dena Bat-Yaacov Papers (Collection PASC-M 57). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988