Re: [ARSCLIST] Voice of America orchestral recordings

["Kevin P. Mostyn" <kpm@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Peter,

The Voice of America was syndicating Boston Symphony concerts via short-
wave at least into the late 1970s. They had begun broadcasting Boston
Symphony concerts from their first incarnation, as the Office of War
Information. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Boston Symphony Transcription
Trust (of which I was the Chief Engineer) sent copies of every concert
broadcast on high-speed duplicated tape to the Voice of America. In
return, the VOA sent us many cartons of Scotch 111 tape, which we used
for miscellaneous purposes.

Some of these concerts were pressed for delayed broadcast. Very few
of them circulate into the collector market, unlike Armed Forces Radio
Service 16". In the course of my career as a collector, thousands of
AFRS dics have passed through my hands, but only a few OWI/VOA discs.
Certain OWI/VOA discs are of great interest, as they contain portions of
concerts that were not broadcast, but which were transcribed.

I have slowly been working on a catalog of the BSO AFRS discs for the
Koussevitzky years, but it's far from complete. I currently own about
100 AFRS discs of BSO concerts. I have seen paperwork that suggest that
the Library of Congress has a complete run of this series. During a visit
to the Library in the mid-1970s, Mr. James Smart showed me their collection
of AFRS and OWI discs, which was vast (and uncatalogued.)

There is far too little data publicly available to do a similar VOA list,
absent going to the LOC and spending many weeks there. Perhaps when I retire!

I have been carefully watching the SONIC catalog on the LOC web site, since
it appeared on the web. So far, exceedingly little AFRS and OWI/VOA
material has been entered in that database, at least in so far as Boston
Synphony Material is concerned.

It may well be that I am not skilled enough to enter the correct search
terms, and I would be thrilled if any of the LOC staff who read this list
would be so kind as to aid me in parsing my searches to yield more results.

Good luck with your research!

Kevin Mostyn

In article <200311180327.hAGIbtXO027431@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, you wrote:
>OK, I just made my first posting to this list in a couple years a minute
>ago and now, I'M BAAACK. This time with a totally different area that I am
>seeking insight into.
>
>Is anyone familiar with a series of LP discs issued by the Voice of
>America, probably in the late 1950's into the early 60's, of major US
>symphony orchestras (Boston, Cleveland, NY Phil) under mostly big names
>(Bernstein, Szell, Munch, et. al.) playing American music (natch), Rorem,
>Riegger, Copland, Becker, Creston? I have come across a small bunch of them
>(ahlf a dozen or so) and think they may be part of a larger series, but I
>really don't know where to look first.
>
>Anybody?
>
>Peter Hirsch