Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening is 2020's best (so far), early-music pioneer Jordi Savall, K-pop band Got7, and Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. 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
PBS Kids Music Games helps kids learn about music and play games with their favorite PBS KIDS characters like Elmo, the Cat in the Hat and Daniel Tiger!
Read Music
Songs in the Key of Los Angeles is a multi-platform collaboration between the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Public Library, and USC professor Josh Kun, that brings to life the Library's extraordinary Southern California Sheet Music Collection.
The book Songs in the Key of Los Angeles by Josh Kun is available. You can place a hold on it for curbside pickup at Glendale Central Library.
Streaming Music
Do you need more J.S. Bach in your life? The complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach were presented in fourteen recitals at Stanford University, with commentary by Dr. Robert Huw Morgan in 2009-2010. They are all available online for free. Robert has been University Organist at Stanford University for 20 years. The Stanford Memorial Church has five organs and is an amazing place for music. Fantastic organist and amazing instruments so take a listen to the recordings!
Summer Reading
Join us for our first virtual performer for Summer Reading! A magical story through song, Jack and the Beanstalk. Will the giant let Jack keep the goose and lead his family out of poverty? Imagine that Jack's story could be your own. This special Noteworthy Puppets show will be available to Glendale Library, Arts and Culture patrons until the end of the day on Friday, July 10, 2020.
Learn About Art
If you missed the Adobe 99U Conference, an event about creative careers, you can watch the replay of the conference livestream or explore talks, workshops, and more. All sessions, keynote, master class, and workshops, are now available to stream at behance.net/99U. You can also download a Creative Self Workbook.
Before there was an app for that, volvelles were used to make calculations or predictions. One of the earliest was created by Ramon Llull to calculate the time at night by aligning the device with the pole star. Now called wheel charts or wheel calculators the scope of information that volvelles can depict is huge. Besides astronomy, subjects include: verb conjugations, color wheels, metric conversions, fortune-telling, radiation dosage calculators used during the cold war, and diet and nutrition wheel guides that provided advice on meals.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
Try Analog Materials for Computer People a workshop from the 99U Conference. Designer and paper engineer Kelli Anderson walks us through the computational thinking of artists including Sol LeWitt, George Perec, and Marjan Teeuwen, and introduces analog computing through exercises that engage our observation and reverse engineering skills. Make a volvelle or perpetual calendar.
If you want to make your own volvelle, to use in a card or answer a question, check out Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms instructions for making a volvelle are included in Chapter 6: Moveable Books.
Staff e-Recommendations
Point Fermin is the southernmost tip of the city of Los Angeles, in San Pedro, located within a park of cliff-side trees, some of whose branches and leaves have struggled against erosion and the constant sweep of the wind. In Leslie Dektor’s moving documentary film Passing Through, two trees in the park are a metaphor, but also inspiration, for artist and photographer Rory White. He finds solace in their deeply-rooted, defensive stance—but during the summer months the cliff beyond the trees is often the site of suicides. To be of service, White started an art project in an attempt to bring those experiencing homelessness and mental illness in L.A.'s Skid Row, and himself, back, literally, from the end. By helping provide a space and supplies, art is created that enables people to release pain and cultivate their talents and perspective into works uniquely and politically relevant, but that most importantly give them self-esteem and self-worth. The film takes people (those experiencing homelessness) and an area (Skid Row) and shows us healing through community, canvas, form, and layered color. -SB
William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony/ Ulysses Kay: Fantasy Variations / Umbrian Scene (Vienna Radio Symphony, Fagen). This recording was released on June 1, 2020. William Dawson (1899-1990) spent three years working on the Negro Folk Symphony which Leopold Stokowski premiered with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. Subsequent performances that year were at Carnegie Hall. It’s a fantastic, accessible and beautifully orchestrated symphony and certainly should be heard. It’s a wonder with his obvious gifts and all the awards during his lifetime that he is not better known today. I’ve heard Ulysses Kay’s (1917-1995) name more often that Dawson. He is undoubtedly another American composer whose music needs to be heard. Both the Fantasy Variations and Umbrian Scene are from 1963. His music is more dissonant than Dawson’s but beautiful, very expressive and skillfully written. A very big congratulations to Naxos, conductor Arthur Fagan and the Vienna Radio Symphony on this wonderful release. Listen to this recording with good speakers and soak in the orchestral sound and rich expression. Frank K. DeWald’s informative program notes in the PDF booklet are much appreciated. -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