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Music & the Performing Arts

Stephen M. Silverman. Foreword by Bette Midler.

For more than 20 years, Kenn Duncan's photographs energized such seminal New York arts publications as After Dark, Dance Magazine, and Opera News. Renowned for his ability to capture the distinctive styles and personalities of his subjects, frequently dancers, he gained widespread acclaim for his gift of celebrating a specific type of performer: the woman whose phenomenal talent and charisma make her more than a star, more than an icon; she is a Diva. Duncan adored the glamorous, larger-than-life personalities that defined American popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s, and they, in turn, adored him. Until his untimely death in 1986, Duncan's camera was like a disco ball illuminating 

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228 pages, 150 illustrations in color and black and white. Published by Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., in association with The New York Public Library, 2008.

New York Theater 1850-1970 Image

Leonard Jacobs

“. . .   an amazing, remarkable and hard-to-put-down book.”

— Talk Entertainment, Oscar E. Moore

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254 pages, 240 b/w images. Published by Turner Publishing Company, 2008.

Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance Image

Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Alexis Greene, and Carrie Robbins

A collaboration between The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the League of Professional Theatre Women, Curtain Call explores the work and the role of distinguished women designing for theater, dance, and opera. Filled with more than 200 images, it features wonderful drawings, photographs, and other artifacts from the  collections of the Performing Arts Library from the late 19th century to the 1950s, as well as the innovative creations of designers from 1960 to the present -- costumes, sketches, set models, lighting designs, and more. Enhanced by interviews with contemporary designers, Curtain Call provides a view behind the curtain that expands 

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112 pages, More than 200 color images. Published by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the League of Professional Theatre Women, 2008.

Claude Debussy, transcribed by Marie Rolf

Debussy's autograph manuscript of Les Papillons, composed most likely in 1881, is now in the collection of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Drawing upon this unique resource, this beautifully designed publication includes the first Performing Edition of Les Papillons, transcribed by Marie Rolf, as well as a facsimile of the Debussy manuscript. An essay by Rolf describes the provenance of the manuscript and the editorial practices followed in the transcription.

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26 pages. Published by New York Public Library, distributed by OMI — Old Manuscripts & Incunabula, 2004.

Gennady Albert, foreword by Mikhail Baryshnikov

At the great Kirov Ballet of St. Petersburg, Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin (1907-1970) danced many leading roles from 1925 to 1953. However, it was as a teacher at the Leningrad Choreographic School that he became a legend. Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov were his star pupils, but nearly all the leading male dancers of the Kirov Ballet from the 1940s through the 1960s were taught by him. Filled with personal photos, as well as others of his students and classes, this concise, insightful biography reveals to us the life and techniques of a master teacher.

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200 pages, b/w photographs. 2001.

Master of Modern Stage Design Image

Mary C. Henderson

Jo Mielziner (1901-1976) was the most highly acclaimed scenic and lighting designer of the American theater of the 20th century. Spanning some five decades, his unusually long career coincided with the flowering of modern theater in the United States, with the result that he designed many of its most famous productions, including Death of a Salesman, Carousel, South Pacific, and Guys and Dolls. Lavishly illustrated with sketches and fully rendered designs never previously published, and featuring a foreword by former New York Times drama critic Frank Rich, this book provides a long-overdue, definitive account of Mielziner's life and work as the 

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288 pages, color and b/w illustrations throughout. Published by Back Stage Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications, 2001.

An invaluable guide to people, terms, and works in music, theatre, and dance. Current and comprehensive, it includes concise biographies of playwrights, composers, and dancers; synopses of major plays; descriptions of American popular music in the 20th century; information on dance on the stage and screen; listings of international music and dance festivals; and much, much more.

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424 pages, illustrations, index, glossaries. Published by Macmillan USA, 1994.

Christina L. Schlundt

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248 pages. Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989.

An Historical Anthology of 19th Century American Music Image

Edited by Richard Jackson, foreword by Virgil Thomson

An anthology presenting a wide range of musical pieces from the early period of American music, edited from the original editions, with a historical and critical introduction and a foreword by one of America's great modern composers.

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336 pages. Published by New York Public Library, 1988.

Richard Rodgers, Edited by William W. Appleton, introduction by Dorothy Rodgers

Personal letters to his wife by a leading composer for the American musical theater offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of some of Rodgers and Hart's most successful musicals for stage and screen. Sketches of friends and collaborators such as Hart and George Gershwin add interest to this look at the theater of a bygone era. Special limited edition of 250 copies signed by Mrs. Rodgers.

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253 pages, 38 b/w illustrations. Published by New York Public Library, 1988.

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