AUSTIN, Texas (August 25, 2004) — The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection has acquired the extensive records of modernist Brazilian music amassed by Dr. Marion Verhaalen, member of the School Sisters of St. Francis of Milwaukee and faculty member of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music since 1978. "The Marion Verhaalen Collection on Camargo Guarnieri and Twentieth-Century Brazilian Music" includes musical scores, LPs, tapes, CDs, correspondence and notes regarding contemporary Brazilian music, especially of the last three decades.
Dr. Verhaalen;s collection began in 1969 with her seminal research on the piano music of Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993) and Francisco Mignone (1897-1986), two of Brazil's leading twentieth-century composers. She then continued her research in an intensive study of Guarnieri who composed over 600 works in all media. Her Guarnieri biography was published in Brazil in 2001 and an English edition is in press.
The core of the Marion Verhaalen Collection relates to Guarnieri. His work is represented by reproductions of seven orchestral manuscripts and numerous scores for piano, strings, woodwinds and voice. His importance in Brazilian music may be gauged by the approximately 100 newspaper articles and numerous other articles written at the time of his death, all collected by Verhaalen. Original letters and e-mail correspondence from Guarnieri and his wife begin in 1969 and continue through the 1990s.
The Marion Verhaalen Collection contains scores by 55 other Brazilian composers as well as several hundred mostly published works in all media. In addition, the collection has most of Francisco Mignone's works for piano, his correspondence with Verhaalen and her interviews with him during 1969 and 1970. Added to the collection is the correspondence with and CDs of over one hundred current young Brazilian composers whom Verhaalen contacted in the preparation of a new book on contemporary Brazilian music.
The materials in the Marion Verhaalen Collection were acquired in various parts of Brazil during trips and nine teaching tours. The collector states that "Each time I would collect more material. It therefore is a rather eclectic collection of things that span the past thirty years."
The Marion Verhaalen Collection provides primary research materials on the current scene in Brazilian art music. These materials complement the strong holdings of Brazilian music in the Benson Latin American Collection which also include the David P. Appleby Brazilian Collection.# # #
The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection embodies more than 80 years of The University of Texas at Austin's commitment to create and maintain a specialized research library dedicated to the culture and history of Latin America. The Benson Collection is part of the University of Texas Libraries.
For more information, contact:
Ann Hartness, Head, Benson Latin American Collection
hartness@mail.utexas.edu
512-495-4520
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/
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