This collection was donated to the UC Berkeley Music Library by Elinor Armer in late 1998. The collection includes manuscripts and printed scores of works by Elinor Armer dating from 1969 to 1990. Numerous sketches and notes relating to her compositions are also included in this archive, as well as a small amount of personal correspondence relating to her collaborations with Ursula LeGuin.

Elinor Armer (b. Oakland, CA, 6 Oct. 1939). American composer and pianist. She studied composition at Mills College (BA 1961), the University of California, Berkeley (1966-8) and California State University, San Francisco (MA 1972). Her teachers included Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner (composition), and Alexander Libermann (piano). In 1976 she was appointed to teach at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is head of the composition department. Writing with a rich harmonic vocabulary and colorful scoring, Armer has developed an individualistic style. Her compositions are often programmatic or include text; theatrical elements bring pieces to life. She is collaborating with the author Ursula K. Le Guin on an imaginative series entitled Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts about an archipelago of islands each of which experiences music in an unusual manner, for example as food, sexual attractant or geologic phenomena. [From The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers].

1.5 Linear feet

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of the Music Library.

Collection is open for research.