Northern Virginia Music Center at Reston collection
George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections Research Center
Fenwick Library, MS2FL 4400 University Dr. Fairfax, Virginia 22030 Business Number: 703-993-2220 Fax Number: 703-993-8911 speccoll@gmu.edu URL: https://scrc.gmu.edu
Kate Grauvogel
Repository
George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections Research Center
Identification
C0191
Title
Northern Virginia Music Center at Reston collection 1967-1979
Quantity
3.5 Linear Feet, 9 boxes
Creator
Meir, Robert C.
Language
English
.
Abstract
The Northern Virginia Music Center at Reston collection contains correspondence, articles, photographs, and 56 audiotape reels
related to music center. Photographs include both images of performances as well as publicity shots of the musicians.
The copyright and related rights status of this collection have not been evaluated (See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/)
Access Restrictions
Only the digitized recordings are available for listening.
Preferred Citation
Northern Virginia Music Center at Reston collection, C0191, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.
Acquisition Information
This collection was donated by Loren Bruce (Reston Historical Trust).
Processing Information
Processed in November 2011 by Kate Grauvogel. EAD markup completed in January, 2012 by Kate Grauvogel and Jordan Patty. Finding
aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in September 2022.
The Northern Virginia Music Center at Reston was established in 1967, and held its first summer camp for young musicians that
same year. Initially, its founders aspired to develop the summer camp into a full-faculty, national summer music training
program that would eventually become a year-round high school for the performing arts. Although it never developed into a
high school, the Center did manage to draw 150 talented student enrollees who came not only from the Greater Washington area,
but also from 30 states and a half dozen foreign countries. From 1969-1972, the Music Center faculty and students held regular
concerts in Northern Virginia. In 1972, students and faculty traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland, to participate in a series
of concerts. By the mid-1970s, the Music Center encountered budget problems, and many board members, including the president,
Paul S. Frick, resigned and the Center gradually dissolved. The collection contains some materials from 1978 since some students
and faculty from the Center later became associated with the Northern Virginia Youth Symphony Association.
Series 1: Music Center Papers, 1967-1979, consists of correspondence, programs, articles, and photographs documenting the
Center and its performances. Funding, budget, board minutes, member mailings, photographs, and resumes of musicians visiting
the Center constitute the bulk of the materials in series 1. The photographs include both images of performances as well as
publicity shots of musicians. This series is arranged alphabetically by subject.
Series 2: Reston Recordings, is a collection of 56 audiotape reels containing Music Center performances by both faculty and
students from 1969-1972. This series is arranged alphabetically by the name of the recorded performance.
Series 3: consists of digitized duplicates of the recordings in Series 2. There are audio discs of the recordings as well
as digital files on an external drive. The arrangement follows that of Series.
Series
Series 1: Music Center Papers 1967-1979 (Boxes 1-2)
Series 2: Reston Recordings 1969-1972 (Boxes 2-6)
Series 3: Digital Duplicates, 1969-1972 (Boxes 7-9)
This series consists of digital duplicates created in 2014 from the open reel tapes of the original concerts. The open reel
audio was saved as MP3 and WAV and stored on nine compact discs and an external hard drive. Recordings are arranged in the
same order as the recordings in Series 2.
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