Fine and Rare III: Musical Marvels of Special Collections UnveiledMusic played a surprisingly important role in the early history of the Libraries' Special Collections, the University's repository for rare books, manuscripts, and early calculating devices and cryptographic machines. Thanks to resources like the Charles J. Rosenbloom Collection, music students, researchers, and enthusiasts alike have access to significant historical documents from the field.
In this themed installment of Fine & Rare, Curator of Special Collections Sam Lemley shares a number of rare and early printed editions of works by well-known composers, including Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms. Join Lemley and special guest Mary Ellen Poole, the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts, to revisit this story and learn about some of the Libraries' musical treasures.
This is a virtual event. Please register to attend. The event link will be included in the confirmation. If you have questions or accessibility concerns, please contact ul-libraries-events@andrew.cmu.edu.
Mary Ellen Poole, Ph.D.Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts
Mary Ellen Poole, Ph.D., is the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts (CFA). She also holds a faculty appointment as professor of music. She joined Carnegie Mellon University and CFA on August 1, 2021.
Dr. Poole is a musicologist who most recently served as the director of the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music in the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, a post she held since June 2014. She also served as a faculty member in the Florence Thelma Hall Centennial Chair in Music and professor of musicology.
Under Dr. Poole’s leadership, the Butler School of Music attracted world-renowned faculty; expanded its donor base and funded facility updates; and led and facilitated community conversations promoting and diversity, equity and inclusion. Throughout her career, she consistently advocated for increased performance opportunities for student ensembles.
Prior to her post at Butler, Dr. Poole served as the dean of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for a decade. There, she increased enrollment, recruited exceptional faculty and supervised construction of an $80 million facility in the city’s arts district. As a musicologist, her research has focused on fin-de-siècle Paris: cabaret chansons and chansonniers, music as political propaganda during the Radical Republic and the ideology of teaching music to the working class.
Dr. Poole was selected as the 13th dean of CFA in summer 2021 by a cross-sectional committee of CFA faculty, staff and students.
Samuel LemleyCurator of Special CollectionsSam Lemley administers research, acquisitions, interpretation, and instruction in Special Collections, CMU's repository for rare books, manuscripts, and early scientific instruments and calculating machines. Lemley holds a PhD in English Literature and an MLIS with a certificate of concentration in rare book and special collections librarianship. Lemley has held research fellowships at the Houghton Library, Princeton University Library, the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, and Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.
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