The Beethoven-House in Bonn has recently added to its Digital Archives the sketchbooks of Ludwig van Beethoven. The Archives include digitized first-edition scores, manuscripts, letters, and now sketchbooks. The sketchbooks are particularly important for scholars to understand Beethoven’s creative process. Beethoven had two types of sketchbooks. At his home, he jotted down ideas in large…

The Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg together with the Packard Humanities Institute, in celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), have made the entire Neue Mozart Ausgabe, both scores and Kritische Berichte freely available on the web. Now, students, scholars, and the public have access to scholarly digitized scores…

Gian Carlo Menotti, renowned and beloved opera composer, died Thursday, February 1st, 2007, at the age of 95. Although born in Italy, Menotti is considered an American composer and studied with Rosario Scalera at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he graduated with honors in 1933. Some of his most well-known works are The Medium,…

Ruckus.com is offering its music downloads free (and legal) to students! Previously a subscription-only service, Ruckus changed its business model to advertising revenue. In addition to over 2.1 million tracks of music, Ruckus provides social software that enables students to create and share playlists, browse playlists of friends and classmates, read comments on message boards,…

To celebrate John Coltrane’s 80th birthday, a jazz-fest will be held on Saturday, September 23rd from 1:00 – 8:30 PM at the Awbury Arboretum in Germantown. From the Tranestop press release: “This free outdoor concert is part of the John Coltrane Jazz Festival – “Giant Steps Over Philly”, ! ; and is hosted by State…