In 2023, the Marvin Duchow Music Library began a collaboration with the Jewish Public Library Archives around the preservation of lacquer discs in one of their archival collections. Lacquer discs deteriorate over time, and without proper preservation interventions, the information captured therein could be forever lost. In the process of digitizing the discs, the sounds of a groundbreaking period in Montreal’s musical history emerged. These recordings, taken from their near-obsolete analog carriers, are now being carried forward in time as digital surrogates so the historical recordings can remain accessible for future generations.

The discs come from a remarkable archive, the Ethel Stark Collection, which documents the life and career of a pioneering violinist and conductor who forged new paths for women in music. Born and raised in Montreal, Ethel Stark (1910-2012) studied violin at the McGill Conservatorium and became the first Canadian to win a fellowship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. In 1940, she formed the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra (MWSO), the first all-women symphony orchestra in North America. Stark built the orchestra from the ground up, recruiting and teaching amateur players, obtaining instruments, finding rehearsal space, and directing the orchestra. The MWSO gave their debut concert in July 1940; seven years later, they became the first Canadian orchestra to perform at Carnegie Hall. Over the next two decades, Ethel Stark and the MWSO gave many concerts, some of which were broadcast live on the radio and recorded on transcription discs. These discs contain some of the few surviving audio records of their performances.

From the Shadows: Ethel Stark, the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, and the Preservation of Audio Heritage tells two interrelated stories that remind us of music’s ephemerality as well as its incredible endurance. First, the story of how Ethel Stark brought Montreal women musicians out from the wings and onto the concert stage by providing them an opportunity to make music. Second, the story of how libraries and archives collaborate to preserve artistic legacies and human endeavours by unearthing and safeguarding their physical and audio traces. 

This exhibition features materials from the Ethel Stark Collection at the Jewish Public Library Archives, including press clippings, photographs, concert programs, and audio clips from the digitized lacquer discs which can be heard on-site at the Music Library, in addition to documents from the Marvin Duchow Music Library’s collections. 

Lacquer discs: a race against time

Starting in the 1930s until roughly the 1950s, lacquer discs, also referred to as transcription discs or acetate discs (though the latter is a misnomer) were used widely for cutting masters in recording studios, in documenting radio broadcasts and creating instantaneous home recordings.

The discs consist of a substrate typically made of aluminum (occasionally glass or cardboard) with a nitrocellulose lacquer coating. Over time, the castor oil in the lacquer begins to leach out and a white powdery substance (palmitic acid) surfaces on the disc. Once this occurs, playback becomes increasingly problematic and the quality of the recording can be compromised as the disc has begun to show signs of deterioration. Proper cleaning and preservation of the recording is essential to prevent further damage and digitization at this late stage, although not without risks, is thankfully still possible. In time, the lacquer can further deteriorate and eventually delaminate, making the disc unplayable and its contents lost to history.

Lacquer discs are commonly found in sound recording archives, and their preservation is at a crucial moment in time – worldwide efforts are made to digitize recordings found on these analog carriers to ensure that the sounds captured therein remain accessible for future generations.

The Ethel Stark Collection contains a total of 44 lacquer discs showcasing Ethel Stark’s work as a soloist as well as a conductor with the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The recordings also feature an interview with Stark on Radio-Canada, and miscellaneous home and broadcast recordings.

In keeping with archival best practices, each record was inspected, cleaned either manually or by using a record cleaning machine. The discs were then digitized using a Rek-O-Kut turntable, Stanton 500 cartridge, various elliptical Rek-O-Kut archival styli, KAB EQS MK12 remastering phono preamp, and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface.

The resulting digital files are raw archival masters made for preservation purposes, without additional treatment (digital restoration, mixing, mastering). Artifacts are therefore present from the discs: pops, crackles, hisses and hums are a normal part of the carriers and the digitization process. And just like many archival record collections, they present a wide range of sonic quality (sometimes originating from the initial recording, sometimes due to deterioration of the physical materials), but all thankfully carried forward in digital form.

From the Shadows: Ethel Stark, the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, and the Preservation of Audio Heritage runs until July 31, 2024, and is accessible during the Music Library’s opening hours. 

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our tenth post in this series features Carlos Jimenez, Jazz Guitar Instructor at the Schulich School of Music.

Q. What are you currently reading?

A. Since I decided to go back to school to do a D.Mus. (at McGill) most of the reading I’ve done in the last few months has been related to my studies. I’ve read many articles and essays on performance practice or musicology. I’ve also been looking at articles related to jazz, jazz guitar, jazz education and following various blogs as well as interviews and publications on subjects related to my research topic. On the other hand, since I’m home everyday during the pandemic, I’ve been able to read to my kids in Spanish on a daily basis, and that’s one of the very good things of the last 12 months.

Q. What are you listening to these days?

A. A big aspect of my D.Mus. research has to do with Ralph Towner’s compositions and his writing process for the guitar, so I have been learning a lot of his compositions and listening to his music very deeply, mainly old recordings but also two recent ones which are simply fantastic: Ralph Towner, My Foolish Heart released on ECM Records in 2017 and a duo recording of Ralph Towner and Trumpeter Paolo Fresu, Chiaroscuro also released on ECM Records in 2009. Simply beautiful!

Q. Have you been able to attend any virtual concerts or conferences?

A: Since I’ve been spending so much time in front of my computer on zoom, I’ve been trying to stay disconnected whenever it’s possible. That being said, the offer for virtual concerts, conferences or webinars has been so abundant over the last few months that I did watch some of them. I follow this great online jazz educational site called Open Studio which organized many virtual concerts and Q&As with great artists. I also watched the MSO concert welcoming their new conductor, Rafael Payare. And more recently I watched a great tribute to jazz guitarist and legend Pat Martino that was organized by the Alternative Guitar Summit.

Q. What are you most looking forward to post-Covid?

A: Obviously, teaching in person, rehearsing with the various ensembles I play with, playing music in public or going to concerts and supporting the local scene. But also, the simple things like bumping into an old friend and going for a quick coffee, or having a quick chat with a colleague between lessons… I really miss that!

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our ninth post in this series features Hank Knox, Associate Professor, Early Music and Harpsichord.

Q. What have you been up to in the last few months?

A. It has been a strange year! I went from an agenda covered in entries to nothing at all between March 12 and 13 last year. Since then I’ve had a lot of time to read, watch some shows and movies, practice, walk and think…

A large part of my reading has been Canadian authors. I took the first part of the year to go through all of the Mordecai Richler novels, mostly in chronological order. So much of the action takes place where I live in Montreal, I can trace the footsteps of his characters in my daily wanderings. In the fall, I discovered the writing of Kathleen Winter, a Newfoundland author currently living near Montreal. I started with Annabel, a moving story of a trans person from a remote Newfoundland village, and moved on to Boundless, her account of a boat voyage through the Canadian North. I also caught up on the most recent novels by Ian Rankin, Scottish detective novelist extraordinaire, and William Gibson.

Thanks to the Apple health app, I know that since the start of the pandemic here in Quebec, I have walked over 1,600km and taken over 2,750,000 steps!

I have listened to a modest amount of music, most recently the first CD by Montreal Early Music ensemble, Les Barocudas, consisting of recent McGill graduates Marie Nadeau-Tremblay (violin), Ryan Gallagher (cello and gamba) and Nathan Mondry (harpsichord and organ). Their offering, planned well over a year ago, features music from another time of pestilence, the great plagues of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Despite the macabre thematics, the music is beautiful and the playing very moving.

After several uninspired months, I started practicing in earnest last fall and have prepared the 30 sonatas from Domenico Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo, or Keyboard exercises, delightfully acrobatic pieces that have pushed me technically like I haven’t pushed myself in ages. With some luck, there will be a CD.

Finally, along with the various British detective series we’ve been watching, I watched the recently released documentary by Alex Winter called, Zappa!, about, oddly enough, Frank Zappa. Some 5 or 6 years ago, a call went out on Kickstarter to help fund the preservation of the video material in Zappa’s extensive personal vault, a project to which I contributed enthusiastically, and the movie, featuring much of that material, premiered in the last few months and is wonderful. (Maybe the best part was looking for my name in little letters in the Thank You section at the very end!).

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our eighth post in this series features Stephen McAdams, Professor in the Department of Music Research at the Schulich School of Music, and Director of the Analysis, Creation and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project.

Q. What are you currently reading?

A. Charlie Mackesy’s illustrated book The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse (although I’m reading the French translation sent to me for Christmas by my eldest daughter in Paris). It’s about friendship and helping each other out. It has beautiful pen and water-colour illustrations and a hand-written font. A taste: “Sometimes I feel lost,” said the boy. “Me too,” said the mole, “but we love you, and love, it’s like a home” (with a drawing of the boy, the mole and the fox sitting on a tree branch looking out over a valley).

Q: What have you been listening to these days?

A. A lot of music for modern Chinese orchestra by Chinese composers. Notably “Tremors of a memory chord” by Lei Liang and “Dong Hai Yu Ge” originally written for the Guzheng by Zhang Yan and orchestrated for mixed orchestra of Western and Chinese instruments by Ma Sheng Long and Gu Guan Ren. Completely new to me. It’s part of a diversity effort in the ACTOR project led globally by Bob Hasegawa and locally for East Asian music by Interdisciplinary Music Studies PhD Lena Heng. 

Q. Have you attended any concerts or events lately?

A. I followed the series of Beethoven symphonies done virtually through Deutsche Grammaphon Stage by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain. They were all recorded under pandemic conditions in the Salle Bourgie with the orchestra spread throughout the whole space. Some great video footage and surprisingly good sound recording over internet.

Q. What are you most looking forward to post-Covid?

A. Being with my lab members in person. I really miss hanging out with them all.

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our seventh post in this series features Shawn Mativetsky, Course Lecturer in Music Education, Musicianship and Percussion, and Director of the McGill Tabla Ensemble.

Q. What are you currently reading?

A. During the semester, I have difficulty finding time to read books, and generally save them for the summer and winter breaks, when I can devote my attention over longer periods of time. For the moment, I tend to mainly read the local, Canadian, and international news, and try to keep up with current events in music, especially relating to percussion and North Indian classical music. I have also been reading a few cookbooks (and enjoying cooking new recipes)! Recent favourites are Michael Solomonov’s Zahav and Israeli Soul.

Q: Have you been able to attend any virtual concerts or conferences?

A. No conferences of late, but I was fortunate to virtually attend the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, which was held online this past November. The convention included numerous workshops, masterclasses, round table discussions, and performances, some pre-recorded and some streamed live. I definitely did enjoy the live-streamed sessions more, as there was an active chat discussion, which allowed for interaction with the presenters and participants and provided a feeling of communicating with the greater percussion community. When PASIC takes place in person, typically somewhere between 5000 and 8000 percussionists are in attendance. Adapting this type of event to an online format must certainly have been challenging, but the organizers pulled off a highly successful event in this new format.

Q. What are you most looking forward to post-Covid?

A. What I am looking forward to the most, as I suspect most musicians are, is the return to live concerts and touring. To go from an active concert and travel schedule to staying essentially at home for an entire year has been quite a change. Though this pandemic perhaps has forced many of us to take some much needed time to slow down, reflect, and adapt. In my case, this fortunately provided me the opportunity to write a book this past summer, RUDIMENTAAL – Pieces for Snare Drum Inspired by the Tabla Drumming of North India, that has been on my to-do list for many years! Nevertheless, I’m very much looking forward to getting outside my bubble and to reconnecting with friends, colleagues, and audiences, once the public health situation allows it. It’s an understatement to say that those first concerts are sure to be highly memorable!

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our sixth post in this series features Isabelle Cossette, Associate Professor, Music Education.

Q. What are you currently reading?

A. I am currently reading a book from Luca di Fulvio. I really liked the first one I read from him, Les enfants de Venise. Now I’m reading Le gang des rêves. It is a bit darker but is still interesting, it is set in New York around 1920, and highlights class differences. I will soon start reading another book by di Fulvio, Le soleil des rebelles.

Another book I have been reading is Performing Music Research, which was recently launched by Aaron Williamon and other colleagues! Professor Williamon has held the position of Schulich Distinguished Visiting Professor and Dean’s Chair in Music for the past two years. Anyone interested in performance research should definitely check out this book!

Q. What have you been listening to these days?

A. I have listened quite a lot to the relatively new Jean Leloup Album: L’étrange pays. He is a fabulous poet. At the end of February, I listened to a great virtual concert produced by Les nuits d’Afrique, which focused on the diversity and kindred ancestral ties between Africa and the First Nations. The performance featured Djely Tapa, Anachnid et Mi’gmafrica.

Q. Have you attended any conferences or events lately?

A. This past week, I attended the opening movie of Le Festival International du Film sur l’Art: the film, Beijing Spring, reveals the role a small group of avant-garde Chinese artists, the Stars, had on Beijing Spring, a brief period of political liberalization and freedom of expression in China in the late 70s and early 80s.

This online Festival will also feature Les frontières de l’art, a film written and produced by my husband on the Quebec art world and in which I performed.

Q. What are you most looking forward to post-Covid?

A. What I am most looking forward to post-Covid is seeing my parents and family, going out on terrasses, eating in restaurants, and having dinners with friends!

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our fifth post in this series features Dorian Bandy, Professor of Music History and Early Music.

Q. What are you currently reading?

A. For an academic, there’s never a simple answer to this question! This term, much of my reading has been in connection with the graduate seminar I’m teaching, Approaches to Musical Meaning. Currently, we’re reading two chapters from R.A. Sharpe’s Music and Humanism, and we’ve also spent quite a bit of time this term on chapters from Roger Scruton’s The Aesthetics of Music. Both are extraordinary books: rigorous in their philosophical arguments but also beautiful and intimate in the way they take account of the musical experience. Scruton’s book is, taken as a whole, particularly inspiring in this regard. But Sharpe, too, explores some wonderful ideas about the meaning and value of music. He makes a compelling case that musical works are best appreciated in exactly the same way that we appreciate people—and beyond the strength of his arguments, this idea has always rung true for me. Especially during a time of comparative isolation, I feel more aware than ever that the people I regularly spend time with include various favourite concertos, sonatas, and operas!

Aside from “official” reading for my seminar, my pleasure reading over the past few weeks has included David Friedman’s Law’s Order (a nonfiction book about the relationship between economics and law), which has completely reshaped my understanding of the legal norms of Anglophone countries; Martin Amis’s novel The Information (a book whose plot does not matter at all; reading it, one forgets that there’s a story and instead just delights in the liveliness and brilliance of Amis’s prose); and various collections of John Hollander’s poetry, including In Time and Place and Blue Wine. In Time and Place is an interesting and beautiful collection in which every stanza is rhymed A/B/B/A. In one poem, he self-consciously reflects on this constraint:

Why have I locked myself inside
This narrow cell of four-by-four,
Pacing the shined, reflecting floor
Instead of running free and wide? 

He goes on for quite a few pages discussing the history of this rhyme-scheme (never once departing from it), and ultimately concludes that the scheme itself is a metaphor—for love, for distance, and even for the passing of time:

Q. What are you listening to these days?

A. For the past two months, I’ve been on a pretty intense Beethoven kick. Beethoven is one of my favourite composers, so it’s not unusual for me to listen to his music—but my focus these past two months has been unusual for being uninterrupted. I traveled to the UK in December, and when I returned to Montreal and had to spend two weeks in isolation, I listened twice to the entire piano sonata cycle (the period-instrument recording featuring Malcolm Bilson and colleagues). I also listened through all of the string chamber music, the piano concertos, and the violin sonatas. I’m now on to the piano trios, and have been listening to a marvellous recording by Trio Goya. A few days ago I finally broke the Beethoven habit and listened to Trio Goya’s Haydn recording—and the music-making is just spectacular.

I’ll also report on two films I’ve discovered this winter: the first is What’s Up, Doc, which was recommended by my music history area colleagues Lisa, David, and Chip. (It came up in a faculty meeting a few weeks ago because much of it takes place at a musicology conference—though this is just the on-ramp to an unrelentingly hilarious farce in the spirit of Bringing Up Baby.) The other is Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which didn’t impress me when I saw them in theatres in my teens and early twenties, but really captivated me now. All three movies in the trilogy are aesthetically beautiful, philosophically rich, and even psychologically deep. (This is not something I ever thought I’d say about a Batman movie!)

This series features Schulich School of Music faculty presenting a selection
of books and music that they are exploring – for edification, inspiration, or
distraction – during these long months of social isolation. These short
interviews seek to emulate the spontaneous interactions that our patrons
enjoyed in the Music Library discussing their current reads or the recordings
that they had recently discovered (or rediscovered!). Tune in to learn about
new works and old favourites, and let us know what you are reading and
listening to!

Our fourth post in this series features Ichiro Fujinaga, Associate Professor, Music Technology, Director Distributed Digital Music Archives & Libraries Lab (DDMAL).

Q: What have you been reading/listening to these days?

A: I have been reading a book about databases, which I discovered in the McGill Library catalogue. It is called  RDF Database Systems by Olivier Curé and Guillaume Blin. As for music, I have been listening to some old favorites and newer groups: J-Pop (Namie Amuro, Hikaru Utada, M-Flo, Ko Shibasaki), Jazz (Michel Camilo, David Sanborn, David Weckl, Paco de Lucia) and Bach’s Mass in B minor. I’ve also recently discovered Corinne Bailey Rae and Love Harmony’s, Inc. which have been on my playlist this last while.

Q: Have you been able to attend any virtual concerts or conferences?

A: We had the pleasure of hosting the International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference in October, 2020. It was challenging as we had never done anything like it before! I had great help from people around me, and it was quite successful with a record-breaking attendance of over 800 people (whereas it is usually in the 400–600 range).