“The Vienna Philharmonic, the recipient of this year’s Birgit Nilsson Prize, often known as the classical music world’s Nobel Prize, announced plans on Wednesday to invest the $1 million award in the digitization of its historic archive,” writes Rebecca Schmid in Wednesday’s (10/8) New York Times. “Founded concurrently with the orchestra in 1842, the archive includes about 6,500 letters, 7,000 program leaflets, autographed manuscripts, the memorabilia of composers like Beethoven and Mahler, and more.… The first step for the Philharmonic will be to find a suitable home not only to store the material but to make it possible for ‘historically interested people from all over the world’ to study on location, [Vienna Philharmonic President Andreas] Grossbauer said. While most of the materials are at the House of Music in Vienna, a multipurpose sound museum, some reside at the State Opera. The next step will be digitization, the details of which have yet to be announced. The orchestra is the third recipient of the prestigious prize, awarded about every three years and created by the Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson, who died in 2005.”
Posted October 9, 2014
