I won’t post the whole press release here, that’s available on the Kimmel Center web site proper in the “News” section, but we just had confirmation that as part of the Library of Congress Song of America Tour with Thomas Hampson on January 8, there will be original manuscripts (called holographs) on display here in the Plaza at the Kimmel Center that night. If you’ve never seen work in the composer’s own hand, it’s really a wonderful experience, akin to seeing Ansel Adams’ camera or van Gogh’s brushes.
Some of these have never left the Library of Congress before:
Samuel Barber’s Sure on this Shining Night (from Four Songs, two pages)
Henry Burleigh’s Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring (pages 68 and 69) and letter from Martha Graham to Mrs. Coolidge
Stephen Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer (First Edition) and The Voices That Are Gone (2 pages)
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (title page)
Leonard Bernstein’s To What You Said (from Songfest, one page)
Gian Carlo Menotti’s Lullaby (from the Consul, Act II, pages 8-10)
Ned Rorem’s As Adam Early in the Morning (one page).
The Library of Congress web site is particularly rich: