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Creator
Feigin, Joel
Call number
JPB 13-40
Physical description
18.3 linear feet (55 boxes); 260.5 kb (3 computer files)
Preferred Citation

Joel Feigin papers, JPB 13-40. Music Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Joel Feigin (1951- ) is an American composer who studied with Roger Sessions and Nadia Boulanger. The Joel Feigin papers, dating from 1958 to 2010, document his career and education. They hold scores, professional and professional files, and education files.

Biographical/historical information

Joel Feigin (1951- ), an American composer, was born in New York City. After receiving his bachelor's degree from the Mannes College of Music, he studied with Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau. At the Juilliard School, where Feigin received his master's and doctoral degrees, he studied with Roger Sessions; Otto Luening was his last teacher.

Feigin has written operas, orchestral works, solo piano pieces, piano concertos, and chamber and vocal music. His honors include a Guggenenheim fellowship (1985) to finish his first opera, The Mysteries of Eleusis, and a Senior Fulbright fellowship (1998-1999) for a residency at the Moscow Conservatory in the Russian Federation, where many of his compositions have been performed. Among his major works are the opera Twelfth Night (2003); Elegy, In Memoriam Otto Luening (1997) for strings and percussion; Festive Overture (1996), for orchestra; Tapestry (1998) for French horn, violin, and piano; Veränderungen (1995) for violin and piano; Echoes from the Holocaust (1993) for oboe, violin, and piano; and Five Ecstatic Poems of Kabir (1988) for soprano and chamber ensemble. Feigin is a professor of composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His website, www.joelfeigin.com, catalogs some, but not all, of his compositions.

Scope and arrangement

The Joel Feigin papers, dating from 1958 to 2010, hold scores, professional and personal files, and education files.

The scores comprise the bulk of the collection and document all of Feigin's output from his youth to 2010. They include early works and composition studies; works-in-progress; finished scores in various orchestrations and revisions; parts for some of his works; transcriptions, arrangements, and composition studies; and unfinished/untitled compositions and sketches. The scores are arranged by title. The best-represented compositions in the collection include the operas Twelfth Night, The Mysteries of Eleusis, and The Ferryman; the Funeral Cantata; and Triptych for Orchestra.

Professional and Personal Files contain correspondence with Rosalie Calabrese Management; correspondence regarding Feigin's Fulbright fellowship, his work with Russian musicians, and Russian performances of his music; commission and programming files; promotional and publicity files; royalty and publishing correspondence and records; teaching materials composed of course files, syllabi, and assignments; and reference letters. They also hold part of Feigin's tenure review package assembled for the University of California, Santa Barbara. These documents are in digital form (Microsoft Word 4 for Macintosh) and consist of Feigin's CV and a bio-bibliography.

The education files hold music study books; high school study books; awards and clippings from the Mannes College of Music, the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau, Columbia University, and the Juilliard School; and general programs, clippings, and awards. The files also hold personal correspondence from Nadia Boulanger and Roger Sessions.

The collection also holds audio and video recordings. Recorded from the early 1970s to around 2005, the audio recordings hold performances of many of Feigin's compositions, including Twelfth Night, Ten Fragments of Pindar, Tapestry, Elegy In Memoriam Otto Luening, Festive Overture, and solo piano works. Most are professionally recorded and unpublished. The video component, on 6 VHS tapes and 32 DVRs, documents rehearsals and performances of the operas Twelfth Night (2004-2005) and The Mysteries of Eleusis (undated).

Arrangement

The collection is in three divisions: Education Files, Professional and Personal Files, and Scores. All are arranged alphabetically.

Administrative information

Custodial history

The collection was assembled and maintained by Joel Feigin until its donation to the Music Division.

Source of acquisition

Donated by Joel Feigin in 2009.

Processing information

Compiled by Matthew Snyder, 2014.

Original order was maintained. All content was rehoused. The floppy disk containing the electronic records was forensically imaged for preservation.

Using the collection

Location

Music Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.