News archive – In the news
Vratislavia, Brassel, Breslau, Wrocław, or "WrocLove"
The fourth-largest city in Poland has worn many names over the course of its storied past. This year, Wrocław is one of the two European Capitals of Culture, along with Donostia-San Sebastián in Spain. The full calendar of events and more information about the Polish city can be found on...
28 April 2016
18th-Century Music Manuscript "Libro Sesto" Tells of Colonial History in Chile
The Biblioteca Nacional de Chile in Santiago (RCH-Sbnc) is home to a rare music manuscript from ca. 1790, which it has had in its possession since January 2014. It was a gift from the descendants of the Chilean musicologist Guillermo Marchant Espinoza (1950-2009), who rescued it from the rubble during...
25 February 2016
The 2016 RISM Bird Count
The winter months keep most of us indoors, but this time of the year is greeted by birdwatchers on both sides of the Atlantic as they grab their binoculars and head outside for annual bird counts. There is the Christmas Bird Count in North America, the Big Garden Birdwatch in...
15 February 2016
Donostia / San Sebastián: European Capital of Culture 2016
Donostia, the Basque name for San Sebastián in Spain, is one of the two European Capitals of Culture in 2016. Donostia joins Wrocław, Poland for year-long festivities of theater, music, dance, exhibitions, and more. Our colleagues at ERESBIL-Basque Archives of Music (E-RE) have written an overview of music life in...
21 January 2016
Luigi Marchesi - A famous singer from the 18th century
Luigi Marchesi (1754-1829) – one of the most famous singers at the end of the eighteenth century – will be the focus of attention in the next few days with large celebrations in Italy. An exhibit dedicated to the Italian castrato, whose career began in 1765 as a choirboy at...
15 October 2015
Using RISM for Genealogy
This article by Peter Teuthorn was originally published in his Genealogie-Feuilleton in an earlier form and is reprinted here with kind permission. Compositions by Christian Balthasar Teuthorn found using RISM Today’s genealogy no longer wears itself out by piling up ancestry data. Genealogists now look at the social context of...
6 August 2015
Help solve a 90-year-old musical mystery
A competition has been set up by the Italian music monthly Musica to find works by the almost unknown Italian-Argentinian composer Rodolfo Zanni (1901-1927). After his mysterious death, his works completely disappeared. He composed over 80 works: symphonies, overtures, ballets, sonatas, and two operas. Can you find any? A worldwide...
30 March 2015
From the First [最初] to the Best [最高]: Ewha Music Research Institute
The following is by Hyun Kyung Chae of RISM Korea and was originally published in the newsletter Ewha’s Research Power for Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (February 2015). It is reprinted here with kind permission. The Ewha Music Research Institute (EMRI) is consistently gaining recognition as a hub for the...
12 March 2015
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day
February 14 – Valentine’s Day – is the day of love in many countries. Today we’re featuring a small selection of Romeo and Juliet compositions from our online catalog for all you romantics out there (and also non-romantics). The results list shows almost 400 entries. Among these are Vincenzo Bellini’s...
13 February 2015
Antonio Cesti's Orontea
Yesterday, February 1, the Oper Frankfurt celebrated the premiere of Antonio Cesti’s opera Orontea. Almost all of the over 100 records in the RISM database by Antonio Cesti are for cantatas or individual opera arias with continuo accompaniment—including four arias from Orontea. Of the eleven operas by Cesti known today,...
2 February 2015
