“Since summer, three librarians at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra have been up against a daunting deadline,” writes Janelle Gelfand in Thursday’s (12/3) Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio). “They are trying to put up to a million pieces of music into as much order as possible by Monday, when it all has to be moved out of Music Hall to prepare for the historic hall’s renovation in June,” when the music library moves to a temporary home at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Principal Librarian Mary Judge, Christina Eaton, associate principal librarian, and Matt Gray, assistant librarian, “are looking at every single piece of music and instrumental or vocal part…. Some of it—including choral music dating back to the first Cincinnati May Festival in 1873—is being put into a digital database for the very first time…. The collection—music for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops, May Festival Chorus, Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, Vocal Arts Ensemble, Classical Roots Community Mass Choir and May Festival Youth Chorus—has been housed in 11 different locations in Music Hall…. CSO librarians and staff will be able to work in the [temporary] space until they move back into Music Hall, estimated to be fall of 2017.”
Posted December 8, 2015
Pictured: Mary Judge, principal librarian at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, looks at old sheet music at Music Hall. The CSO’s music library is moving to the Downtown Public Library while Music Hall is under construction. Photo by Cincinnati Enquirer/Cara Owsley
