The Belfer Audio Archive will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a series of lectures, concerts and film screenings from Oct. 31-Nov. 2. Developed by a team of faculty, librarians and members of the University community, the events will highlight the Belfer’s rich heritage and illuminate the importance of recorded sound to music-making in the 20th century, and the legacy of those practices on music today.
Since its founding in 1963, the Belfer Audio Archive rapidly became a leader in sound re-recording and preservation technologies. The archive now houses one of the largest collections of sound recordings in North America, with particular strengths in cylinders and discs up to 1970. With new leadership and an administrative home in Syracuse University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, the Belfer Archive is becoming more fully integrated into the academic and cultural life of the University and the broader communities that it serves.
The anniversary celebration will explore a number of common themes. The opening lecture, “Sound, Memory and the Psychoanalytic Century,” presented by Paul Théberge, sets out a primary focal point: how sound recording became the vehicle for a diverse range of public, cultural and individual memories, and, at the same time, how sound technologies in cinema have played a vital role in representing the experience of aberrant psychological states of mind. The lecture will be followed by a double-feature screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” and “Rebecca,” particularly apropos on Halloween evening.
A seminar on Friday will explore the history of the Belfer Audio Archive itself, from its founding by Professor Walter Welch to current research and scholarship that is being conducted in the archive’s collections. Other events on day two include a Syracuse Symposium panel discussion with distinguished film music scholars who will explore how composers and producers have used sound technologies to create new ways of expressing psychological states, particularly in film scores by composers Miklos Rósza and Franz Waxman. An SU Symphony Orchestra concert featuring Rósza’s “Spellbound Concerto” and Waxman’s “Rebecca Suite,” as well as a new work, “Goodnight Moon,” by SU composer Andrew Waggoner will complete the day’s events.
The final day features the renowned Kronos Quartet. First violinist David Harrington will converse with Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, taking as a starting point on how archival sounds documented in audio recordings intersect with the ensemble’s cutting-edge music-making. The series will conclude with a concert by this uniquely creative string quartet.
For more information and a full schedule of events, see http://belferat50.syr.edu.
