- unitid
-
{"value"=>"186215", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"JPB 23-1", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b23200642", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1950-2019", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1950/2019"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Sorrel Hays and Marilyn Ries papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"42 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"15.12 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"2533 computer files", "unit"=>"computer_files"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"51.6 gigabytes", "unit"=>"gigabytes"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Music Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Sorrel Hays (1941-2020) was a composer, pianist, and artist best known for her compositions <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices</span> (1981), <span class=\"title\">The Glass Woman</span> (1989-1993), and <span class=\"title\">Our Giraffe</span> (2006-2008) as well as her interpretations of Henry Cowell's and John Cage's music. Marilyn Ries (1937-2017) was a prolific sound engineer and producer who created audiobooks, sound effects, radio and educational programs, music recordings, and video and film recordings. Hays and Ries met in 1985, became domestic partners in 1989, and married in 2015. Their papers date from 1950 to 2019 and chronicle their professional careers through sound and video recordings, correspondence, score drafts, notes, notebooks, contracts, grant proposals, and press clippings. The collection also holds personal documents and photographs."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"Multiple languages"}
{"value"=>"Materials are primarily in English. Some correspondence, press clippings, programs, and sound recordings are in German or Spanish."}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Hays, Sorrel, 1941-2020", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Sorrel Doris Ernestine Hays (born 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, and artist, best known for her orchestral work <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices</span> (1981); her operas <span class=\"title\">The Glass Woman</span> (1989-1993), <span class=\"title\">Our Giraffe</span> (2006-2008), and <span class=\"title\">The Bee Opera</span> (2003); and her interpretations of Henry Cowell's and John Cage's music. Hays adopted her grandmother's family name Sorrel in 1985.</p> <p>In the 1960s, Hays studied music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, Germany; and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. After completing her studies in Madison, Wisconsin, Hays moved to New York City to study with Hilde Somer. In 1971, she won the Gaudeamus Competition for Interpreters of New Music and began her career as a pianist. Hays performed at American universities and recorded cluster music that was broadcasted internationally. She gained recognition for her interpretations of John Cage's and Henry Cowell's piano music.</p> <p>Hays was a feminist and political activist. In 1976, Hays and Beth Anderson, a composer, curated a concert series, Meet the Women Composer, that advocated for gender parity in music through programming. The series presented the work of eighteen composers through twelve concerts at the New School for Social Research. In 1983, she composed the sound component, titled <span class=\"title\">Celebration of NO</span>, from <span class=\"title\">Beyond Violence</span>, a multimedia piece first performed at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The project was also performed at Experimental Intermedia in New York City and on West German Radio. A copy of the work is held at and released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.</p> <p>Over the course of her career, Hays worked on over ninety music projects. She composed orchestral works; operas; and songs for films, videos, and multimedia installations. Her compositions were commissioned by orchestras, multimedia artists, radio stations, or theater companies. Hays constantly revised her pieces and used them in related projects. For example, Hays' 1981 orchestral work <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices</span> (1981) was commissioned by the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra for its fiftieth anniversary. After its premiere, Hays recorded the piece and submitted it to National Public Radio (NPR) for use in the <span class=\"title\">Poetry is Music</span> series. It is unclear whether the recorded version of <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices</span> differed from the 1981 live orchestral work. Hays then worked with filmmaker George C. Stoney to create a documentary, <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices: A Composer's Exploration</span> (1985), about the development and premiere performance of the piece.</p> <p>Some of Hays' other music projects include <span class=\"title\">Bella</span> (2013-2016), an opera about the life of Bella Abzug and feminist politics; and <span class=\"title\">Love in Space</span> (1987), an opera commissioned by West German Radio Cologne composed of narration, dialogue, scat singing, and parts for a fiddle, drums, and a synthesizer. Hays wrote parts of the score as punk rock. Hays also created <span class=\"title\">TOOWHOPERA, A CANTATERA</span> (2009), a multimedia iteration of music from <span class=\"title\">Love in Space</span>, featuring video and slides, commissioned by and performed at the Georgia Music Teachers Association Annual Conference. From 1982 to 1994, Hays worked with lyricist Brian Swann on three interrelated projects commissioned by baritone Thomas Buckner and Vakhtang Jordania, conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, <span class=\"title\">Circling Around</span> (1982; 1994), <span class=\"title\">The Clearing Way</span> (1991), and <span class=\"title\">Dreaming the World</span> (1994). While the three projects feature different instrumentation and vocal scores, the movement \"Circling Around\" was revised and used in all three projects.</p> <p>Hays integrated technology into her compositions starting in the early 1970s. In <span class=\"title\">Electronic Music</span> (1974), Hays created a tape of processed sounds to accompany live performers. Three years later, she created <span class=\"title\">Sensevents</span> (1977), a multimedia performance project that integrated taped sound with light cues, motorized sculptures, and live musicians. One production of <span class=\"title\">Sensevents</span> at Lincoln Center also involved dancers from Kent Baker's company. In 1981, Hays created the lullaby commissioning project that commissioned composers to write lullabies for various instruments. In addition to a radio series, Hays proposed to have work choreographed by Mary Overlie and performed at The Kitchen, New York University, Lincoln Center Festival Out-of-Doors, Cooper Union, and department stores.</p> <p>Hays also wrote compositions for books and essays about musicians and music, including <span class=\"title\">Sound Symbol Structures</span> (1974), an instructional book for children.</p> <p>In 1982, Hays co-founded Southern Pitch Incorporated with Charles Flowers and Eloise Robbins to cultivate, support, and nurture the art and culture of the Southern United States. She served as the president of the organization from 1982 until 1997.</p> <p>Hays met her life partner Marilyn Ruth Ries (born 1937), an audio engineer and producer, at the preview of a film Ries worked on in 1985. The pair worked on audiobooks, music, and video projects together. They became domestic partners in 1989 and then married in 2015.</p> <p>Before meeting Hays, Ries co-founded the recording label Wise Woman Enterprises with Kay Gardner and Betsy Rogers. She produced, recorded, and did sound reinforcement for feminist and lesbian musicians and comedians Alix Dobkin, Alive!, and Jeritree. Ries recorded and produced hundreds of children and adult audiobooks for Troll Associates, Scholastic Corporation, Warner Audio, and Bantam Books, including co-scripting and co-directing with Hays, an abridged audiobook of <span class=\"title\">The Mists of Avalon</span> by Marion Zimmer Bradley in 1985.</p> <p>Ries also recorded thousands of sound effects and worked with producers Phyllis Dolgin and Helen Borten on English as a second language programs and the NPR series <span class=\"title\">A Sense of Place</span>, respectively. Along with Hays, Ries created the docudrama <span class=\"title\">Disarming the World/Pulling Its Leg</span> (1987); <span class=\"title\">C. D. - The Ritual of Civil Disobedience</span> (1987), an experimental documentary that used video painting (pre-recorded video that is projected or displayed on the wall like paintings), about the Women's Peace Camp at Seneca, New York; and <span class=\"title\">Touch of Touch</span> (1988), a video that used video painting and music from <span class=\"title\">Love in Space</span>.</p> <p>Ries and Hays co-created <span class=\"title\">Touching Sound: Living Lullabies</span> (2012, 2016), a book with accompanying sound recordings about how music affects the body and emotions through simple songs and sounds.</p> <p>Hays and Ries moved from New York City to Buchanan, Georgia, in 2008. They lived in a house near Swallow Hollow Lake.</p> <p>Ries died in 2017 in Buchanan, Georgia. Hays died in Buchanan, Georgia, in 2020.</p> <p>--</p> <p>Biography</p> <p>Discogs.com. <span class=\"title\">Marilyn Ries Discography</span> [database on-line].Beaverton, OR, USA: Zink Media, Inc, 2023.</p> <p>Hays, Sorrel. \"Marilyn Ruth Ries.\" Seawave Recordings, March 27, 2017. https://seawaverecordings.com/804-2/.</p> <p>Hutcheson's Memorial Chapel and Crematory. <span class=\"title\">Sorrel Doris Ernestine Hays Obituary</span>, February 12, 2020. https://www.hutchesonsmemorialchapel.com/obituary/Sorrel-Hays.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Sorrel Hays and Marilyn Ries papers, dating from 1950 to 2019, impart mainly Hays' professional career as a composer and Ries' career as a sound engineer and producer. Most of the materials incorporate manuscript and printed musical score drafts, correspondence, contracts, grant proposals, notes, notebooks, and programs generated by Hays' composition and multimedia projects. Ries' sound engineering work is also well represented through sound recordings and sound files for audiobooks, sound effects, educational radio programs, commercial educational recordings, Hays' various recording and multimedia projects, and other music recordings. The collection holds Hays' correspondence with avant-garde composers and Sidney Cowell (wife of Henry Cowell); as well as sheet music and research material from her career as a pianist; and notebooks and correspondence from her training at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, Germany. The small amount of personal correspondence, photographs, Swallow Hollow land documents, and a video recording were primarily created by, or addressed to, Hays.</p> <p>Although the collection is divided into three series, Hays and Ries collaborated on several projects together. As a result, certain materials overlap across the series.</p> <p>Ries and Hays annotated the containers of their sound and video recordings. These annotations provide descriptions of the content as well as context of the recordings. Scans of the containers are available from the Music Division; these items in the container list include the note \"additional scanned resource available upon request.\"</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Sorrel Hays and Marilyn Ries papers are arranged in three series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mus/186215#c1726705'>Series I: Sorrel Hays Professional Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1950-2019 [bulk 1975-2000]</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, spanning from 1950 to 2019, comprises materials from Hays' professional musical training, composition and multimedia projects, organizational affiliations, and various writing assignments. The series reflects the intersection of her personal and professional lives as a feminist activist and artist through her projects and correspondence. Hays' professional career is represented through musical score drafts; her collection of sheet music; correspondence with Sidney Cowell and 20th-century composers; notebooks, address and composition books; day planners; essays on musicians and music; newspaper and magazine clippings; sound and video files; and sound and video recordings.</p> <p>The series is arranged alphabetically by project or type.</p> <p>The bulk of the series is comprised of manuscript and printed score drafts; correspondence with lyricists, and individuals and organizations that commissioned Hays' works; concert programs; notes; performer résumés; notebooks; composer explanation and direction pages for musicians and performers; libretto drafts; and some research materials, sound recordings, and photographs from various composition and multimedia projects. There are over ninety projects present in the collection, including the operas <span class=\"title\">Bella</span> (2013-2016), <span class=\"title\">The Bee Opera</span> (2003), <span class=\"title\">The Glass Woman</span> (1989-1993), and <span class=\"title\">Our Giraffe</span> (2006-2008); the radio dramas <span class=\"title\">Dream in Her Mind</span> (1995), featuring eleven actors, six vocalists, and a sampling electronic keyboard; and <span class=\"title\">Mapping Venus</span> (1996-2012), created out of material from <span class=\"title\">Dream in Her Mind</span>; and <span class=\"title\">TOOWHOPERA, A CANTATERA</span> (2009). The projects <span class=\"title\">Southern Voices</span> (1981); <span class=\"title\">M.O.M. 'n P.O.P.</span> (1984), a multimedia performance using music for three pianos; <span class=\"title\">Sensevents</span> (1977); <span class=\"title\">Celebration of NO</span> (1983); and <span class=\"title\">Sound Shadows</span> (1990), a multimedia performance involving music for oboe, didjeridu, keyboard, percussion, and using film, a dancer, an actress, and an audio tape, are well represented in the series. Projects dated after 1985 occasionally hold audio logs, scores for tape, and sound recordings and files created or co-created by Ries.</p> <p>The sound files and recordings in this series often overlap with Ries' work. Ries often mixed sound files from Hays' composition and multimedia projects with various unrelated projects, thus sound files from Hays' composition and multimedia projects can be found in Series II.</p> <p>Throughout her career, Hays often reused and revised elements of her composition and multimedia projects; the container list signifies interrelated and altered projects through notes.</p> <p>Most of the correspondence in the series recounts the early years of Hays' professional career when she was interpreting the works of other 20th-century composers. These letters, dated 1971 to 1989, include correspondence from İlhan Mimaroğlu, John Cage, Tom Johnson, Carlo de Incontrera, Russell Peck, and Morton Feldman. The letters discuss her piano performances and interpretations of their works. Of note is Hays' correspondence with Sidney Cowell about Henry Cowell's music. Hays often interfiled her correspondence with flyers, programs, research articles and interviews, photographs, press clippings, and personal notes.</p> <p>Hays' collection of 20th-century composer sheet music includes primarily published and a few unpublished scores. Some unpublished scores were sent to her directly from the composer. Hays interfiled the sheet music associated with an individual composer with music catalogs. Some sheet music is annotated. While the annotations indicate that Hays used some of the scores for performances, it is unclear when and where Hays performed individual pieces. The series also carries correspondence from Hermann Steinbeis, a supportive friend whose family Hays often stayed with when she was performing near Brukmühl, Germany. Hays' compositions \"Exercises für Bruckmühl I-IV\" (1974), <span class=\"title\">Characters</span> (1978), <span class=\"title\">Harmony: harmonie in die bleierne Zeit</span> (circa 1982), and \"Lullabye, for Elizabeth Steinbeis\" (1979) were written for or dedicated to members of the Steinbeis family. The series also features letters written by school children about Hays' piano performances and a synthesizer demonstration.</p> <p>The series records Hays' involvement in organizing and advocating for the 1975 and 1976 concert series Meet the Women Composer through correspondence, clippings, flyers, programs, tickets, signed contracts, and a list of the composers. There is correspondence from her work as a coordinator for the First National Congress on Women in Music. Correspondence, legal and financial documents, reports, and meeting minutes disclose her time as the president of Southern Pitch Incorporated.</p> <p>Hays preserved some drafts and a copy of her essay \"Swashbuckler in Exile\" on musician Maurice Weddington; a copy of <span class=\"title\">Touching Sound: Living Lullabies</span> (2012, 2016); the educational book, <span class=\"title\">Sound Symbol Structures</span> (1974); compositions and directions written for Silver Burdett Company; as well as various unpublished short stories, essays, poems, and music reviews.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mus/186215#c1727163'>Series II: Marilyn Ries Professional Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1975-2012</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, dating from 1975 to 2012, gives an account of Ries' sound engineering and producing projects through sound recordings and files, as well as a contract with Eclipse Music Group Incorporated. Most of the sound recordings and files are comprised of Ries' edits of animal and natural sound effects recorded from ambient noise in New York City, Swallow Hollow, and on international trips around Western and Northern Europe, and Russia; narration, sound effects, and background music for audiobooks; commercial recordings for feminist and lesbian musicians; and various educational and radio programs.</p> <p>The series encompasses Ries' mixed, unedited, and edited audio recordings and sound files created for book publishing company, Troll, and others; sound effects company, Sound Ideas; lesbian and feminist musicians, Alix Dobkin and Alive!; easy listening ambient sound and instrumental recording company, Eclipse Music Group Incorporated; Helen Borten's NPR series <span class=\"title\">A Sense of Place</span> and other projects; and Phyllis Dolgin's educational programs and memorial service for her husband, Irving Joseph. There are various recordings by Loretta Goldberg, including edited recordings for the album <span class=\"title\">Zygotones</span> (2000), polka songs by Frank Wojnarowski and Marion Lush, narration recordings by Jacquelyn Reinach, natural sounds by Annea Lockwood, and music recordings for TownHall Records.</p> <p>The sound files include Ries' mixed and unedited recordings of public radio programs, TownHall Records artists, Grete Sultan's piano recordings, Kay Gardner's albums <span class=\"title\">Moon Circles</span> and <span class=\"title\">Emerging</span>, and interviews about Women with Wings and Women Singing in Sacred Circle. There are also sound files from unidentifiable projects.</p> <p>While most of the recordings in the series are attributed to Ries, she often collaborated with Hays, particularly on the sound effects and Eclipse Music Group audio recordings. Some of Ries' projects in this series also overlap with Hays' composition and multimedia projects; thus, some sound files are associated with Hays' projects.</p> <p>This series is arranged alphabetically by last name, publisher, distributor, or type.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mus/186215#c1727683'>Series III: Personal Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1968-2000</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, dating from 1968 to 2000, is composed of documents related to Hays and Ries' house near Swallow Hollow Lake, as well as personal correspondence, photographs, and a video recording. Hays and Ries kept letters, cards, and postcards from friends, family members, and lovers. Holiday greeting cards comprise the majority of the correspondence. There are also letters from Hays' mother, Christina Hays; father, John Walter Ernest Hays; younger brother, James Ray Hays; and older brother, John Hays.</p> <p>The photographs, spanning the 1970s to the 1980s, include candid slides, negatives, digital pictures, and prints from Hays' family and Hays visiting a zoo, wading in a river, and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Hays also retained some candid pictures shot by her then-boyfriend, Howard Reynolds. There are digital pictures of Christmas ornaments and a créche scene.</p> <p>The series also features correspondence, legal documents, and a list related to her purchase of land next to Swallow Hollow Lake. The video recording conveys German-American pianist Grete Sultan's ninetieth birthday party.</p> <p>This series is arranged alphabetically by type or topic.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Sorrel Hays in 2020.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Amy Lau</span> in <span class=\"date\">2023</span>.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Inquiries regarding audio and video materials in the collection may be directed to the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound (recordedsound@nypl.org). Audio and video materials will be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Hays retained all copyrights and intellectual property rights to the materials in the collection. This protection will end in 2070. Permission to reproduce, distribute, display, perform or alter collection materials must be secured from the Estate of Sorrel Hays.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1950
- keydate
-
1950
- date_end
-
2019
- date_inclusive_start
-
1950
- date_inclusive_end
-
2019
- extent_statement
-
15.12 linear feet (42 boxes). 51.6 gigabytes (2533 computer files)
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Sorrel Hays and Marilyn Ries papers, JPB 23-1. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts"}