This year marks the 10th anniversary of the remarkable Music at MIT Oral History Project at the MIT Lewis Music Library. For 10 years, Forrest Larson has been interviewing key players in the history of music at MIT. His interviews are meticulously prepared and conducted, so he elicits many wonderful revelations about music at MIT, the lives and careers of MIT musicians, and remarkable observations about many aspects of music making for both amateurs and professionals.
Music has been at MIT for most of the Institute’s existence, with a formal music program established in 1947. The Oral History Project includes interviews that cover music at MIT from the 1940s onward, including perspectives from faculty, staff, former students, and visiting artists.
I’ve listened to the interview with three musicians who were very important to me during my MIT student years: John Corley, conductor of the MIT Concert Band; Herb Pomeroy, conductor of the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble; and John Bavicchi, former MIT student and de-facto composer-in-residence for the MIT Concert Band during the last 30 years of John Corley’s tenure. With the permission of the Lewis Music Library, I will be excerpting and discussing some of the material from these interviews that I find especially relevant to music making today. I hope you enjoy these posts!