Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening is Mariah Carey (celebrating three decades of hit-making this year), jazz tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, the original film soundtrack from South Pacific, and singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes. Log in with your Glendale library card to listen!
Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access our online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.Try listening to a streaming Playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library, Naxos Jazz Music Library, Hoopla or Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.
Learn About Music
Noodle Loaf is an interactive music podcast for kids to bring learning and laughter to your down time with singing, dancing and lots of play.
Read Music
Nina Lamb was married to Jax Hozman, founder of Elektra Records. She was famous as a chef for the label, preparing meals for industry parties and rock stars. If you are curious about what rock stars ate when recording, read this January 10, 2010 LA Times article, with Nina’s recipes for phyllo rolls, Brunswick stew and pissaladière.
Streaming Music
Songs from the Santa Fe Opera includes videos of artists who were to perform in the 2020 season along with insights from conductors, directors and more.
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has many resources including the Lomax Family Collections and the Civil Rights History Project. Make sure to also visit their Homegrown Concert Series and Online Archive. Recent concerts have included Traditional Songs from Sweden, Navajo Traditional Dance, Tuareg Music and Songs from Niger, Tejano Singers from San Antonio and Irish Music from New York.
Learn About Art
Artbound is an arts and culture series that examines the lives, works and creative processes of arts and culture innovators making an impact in Southern California and beyond. This season, it explores the influence of Japanese American designers on modern art, how Día de los Muertos evolved from a pre-colonial ritual to a worldwide holiday, Los Angeles' role in the growth of gospel music and much more.
Art Online
Australian artist Andy Thomas interprets birds’ trills, squawks, and coos through an animated series of digital sculptures. Bursting dots, billowing fog, and flashes of amorphous forms correspond to the avian sounds. With each chirp, the fleeting masses contort, grow, and disassemble into a new, vibrant form.
Go on an epic journey with a trio of musicians into the depths of the human auditory system with Odyssey of the Ear. A wild tale filled with beasts and storms and strange faceless dancing humans armed with larger-than-life ossicles. Produced by Nadja Oertelt, with animation by Andrew Benincasa.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
Japan House Los Angeles offers free events through their YouTube channel, such as flower arranging, drawing and a Home Cooking Series.
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre has a range of activities inspired by artists that are fun and educational. Try making a soundsuit inspired by artist Nick Cave or try out their WOW Festival Creative Pack.
Check out the panels from Comic-Con for some fun activities and insight. Hosts of In Quest of Geek held an arts-and-crafts panel along with the cast of Perception Studio and demonstrated how families can learn how to make their own "felted friends" with crafts already around the house. A discussion about puppetry and performance art was included as well.
Staff e-Recommendations
The history books will tell what happened, but the art will tell them how we felt about it.
In the 2013 documentary Just Like Being There, the featured artists define gig posters in various ways: as modern folk art, transportation to sound, collectible artifacts, type integrated with art, advertisements, or simply “merch.” The documentary records the process of conception to creation (either by hand or by computer), then the mixing of colors, printing, and the final unveiling. Behind this process are the referenced bands and shows, of course, but the onus is on the artists whom we see rummaging around shelves to find their great poster successes and failures and failures that were successfully corrected (like when the band’s name is misspelled). The focus is on indie rock posters, we do get to see how artists view and bridge the divide between “gig posters” and “art posters.” Film posters and book jackets are also shown, but the heart of the film is the gig. In our current cultural moment, Just Like Being There lands differently than it did seven years ago when the documentary was released. Although I look at my film posters slightly more reverently than my gig posters, all of them encapsulate a moment in time where event now leads to feeling. -SB
Philip Glass The Hours (Motion Picture Soundtrack). There are many opinions on the music of Philip Glass. Whatever you think of his music, his effectiveness as a film composer is undeniable. Case in point, listen to his soundtrack for the now classic 2002 film The Hours. The movie is based on the 1998 novel by Michael Cunningham which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I am not attempting to review this amazing book or film but the minimalist soundtrack functions as a bridge between the three interwoven stories. The strength of his composition comes from using relatively simple musical materials to support the deeper tragedies within the film. The soundtrack is on Naxos Music Library. If you have not seen the film or read the book don’t hesitate if you want to listen to the soundtrack first. -BW
Covid-19 Resources
Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) is available from the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, the City of Glendale, and the Library, Arts & Culture department.
Resources for Music Businesses And Industry Workers, Playing for Change, Sounding Point LA
Resources for Freelance Artists, California Arts Council, Americans for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts
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