New Heads of Music and Dance Divisions Appointed at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Two key appointments have been made to head the Music and Dance Divisions of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. George Boziwick, most recently the Curator of the Music Division's American Music Collection, has been appointed Chief of the Music Division, effective immediately; and Michelle Potter, an internationally recognized dance scholar and curator, will join the Library as Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in August 2006.

"The Library's incomparable collections in music and dance are in the hands of two extremely experienced artists/librarians who will continue to build on the growing well-spring of creative information sought by scholars and artists the world over," said Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of Library for the Performing Arts, in making the announcements. David S. Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries, added, "As research libraries define themselves in the 21st century, we must look to leaders who are not only masters in their fields but able to conceptualize new ways of thinking about collections and services for an ever expanding global community of users who depend upon us for their creative and scholarly work.   George Boziwick and Michelle Potter are professionals who understand the full import of these challenges."

About George Boziwick
A staff member of The New York Public Library since 1986, George Boziwick has been Curator of the American Music Collection since 1991. He has worked to bring major collections to the Library, such as those of Wallingford Riegger, Arthur Berger, Norman Dello Joio, Jerry Bock, Fred Ebb, and the American Music Center score collection, among others. "As a wider audience discovers our collections through increased digital access and new online exhibits, we hope to inspire these new visitors to continue their explorations onsite in our reading rooms," said Mr. Boziwick in expressing his goals for the Music Division.

Mr. Boziwick has been an active member of the Music Library Association and the Society for American Music. He also contributed scholarly articles to NOTES: The Journal of the Music Library Association, American Music, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, and Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge). His musical compositions have been performed by organizations and performing ensembles such as The National Association of Composers, the Newport Music Festival, and the Dorian Wind Quintet. Recent performances include a residency with the Goliard Ensemble for their 2005 Southeastern Music Festival, where he performed, gave master classes in composition, and lectured on American sacred tune books in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. His piece Magnificat has been published by C.F. Peters, and his music has been recorded on the Opus One label. Mr. Boziwick has a Master of Library Service degree from Columbia University and a Master of Arts in Music Composition from Hunter College.

About Michelle Potter
A dancer, teacher, writer, oral historian, and curator, Michelle Potter is the inaugural Curator of Dance at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. In this position she built the Library's dance materials into the most significant dance collection in Australia, making much of the collection accessible to the world via the Library's web portal, Australia Dancing. She has been widely published in magazines, newspapers, and in scholarly journals in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. "I believe strongly that dynamic, professional curatorship is the key element that will take heritage collecting institutions forward into the second decade of the 21st century," she has written. "Today's curator needs to be a flexible leader who can work with colleagues across a range of different areas and disciplines, but in particular in areas not previously associated with curatorship: information technology, web services, and digital archiving for example.   Strategically, collecting institutions need to adapt to an ever-changing digital environment."

Dr. Potter has a doctorate in Art History and Dance History from the Australian National University, and she is the recipient of many awards and prizes including two Australian Cultural Studies Awards and the 2003 Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance.

About the Music Division
The Music Division of The New York Public Library is one of the world's preeminent music collections. Chronicling the art of music in all its diversity --opera, spirituals, ragtime, jazz, musical comedy, orchestral, rock, and pop music-- its vast collection illuminates an art form that is as diverse as humanity. While the Division contains many scores and manuscripts from centuries past, its curatorial mandate is an activist one, placing major emphasis on capturing the creative output of contemporary composers. An acquisitions program that spans the globe brings the Division the latest published music from many nations. The breadth and scope of this material foster a dynamic dialogue across cultures and galvanize an extraordinary range of musical scholarship and performance activity. Particularly noteworthy is the American Music Collection, with its own curator and staff. From the first edition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to Native American songs to extensive manuscript collections of American composers such as Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the Division has made the documentation of American classical and popular music a major priority. Collection efforts bring to the Division a copy of almost every piece of classical and popular music published in the United States each year. Through special arrangements with leading American music publishers, the Division also acquires numerous rental scores that would otherwise be inaccessible for study.

The Music Division traces its origins to 1888, when the Lenox Library acquired the extraordinary music library of financier Joseph Drexel -- a collection of 6,000 volumes, containing rare 15th- through 19th-century music. Throughout the 20th century the Division has built on this core material, at the same time developing a comprehensive collection of basic bibliographies, historical editions, and complete works that supports general research in the field. A vital center for music scholars and students, the Music Division also serves the needs of a broad professional constituency: singers and instrumentalists in search of unusual music, writers preparing program notes for concerts and recordings, lawyers searching copyrights, television producers and book publishers in need of illustrative material, and sociologists studying popular culture. Resources, available for study free of charge, include: printed books, scores, and periodicals; clippings and programs; iconography; archival collections; autograph music manuscripts; sheet music; and electronic resources.

About the Dance Division
The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library is the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance. Chronicling the art of dance in all its manifestations -ballet, ethnic, modern, social, and folk- the division is much more than a library in the usual sense of the word. It is part museum, part film production center, and part consulting service to the professional dance community. It preserves the history of dance by gathering diverse written, visual, and aural resources, and it works to ensure the art forms continuity through an active documentation program .

Founded in 1944 as a separate division of The Research Libraries of The New York Public Library, the Dance Division is used regularly by choreographers, dancers, critics, historians, journalists, publicists, filmmakers, graphic artists, students, and the general public. Working with the division's vast resources, a user can reconstruct an Elizabethan court dance, a 19th-century Italian tarantella, or a 20th-century Ceylonese devil dance; determine what makeup Nijinsky wore in Scheherazade; learn the problems Picasso faced in working on the ballet "Parade" from letters in his own hand; or compare the modern dance styles of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and Doris Humphrey. While the division contains more than 42,000 reference books about dance, these account for only 3 percent of its vast holdings. Other resources available for study free of charge include: films and videotapes, audiotapes, clipping and program files, iconography, and manuscripts and memorabilia.

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Contact:             Rima Corben             212.704.8600

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