Hi there!

If you’ve been in and out of Music Library this summer, you might have wondered, who is that girl sequestered behind the old information desk and why on earth is she surrounded by mounds of paper, boxes, photographs and old sketches of what look like compositions? Or perhaps you might not have wondered at all! 😉 Either way, that girl is me… Michaela. I am a Masters student in opera and voice performance at McGill University. And I have been spending my summer at the Library, thanks to a Young Canada Works Grant,  working on a special project for the MDML.

Full colour facsimile of 14th century Squarcialupi Codex (1992 re-print) and an ORIGINAL mid-18th century printed edition of G.F. Händel’s Judas Maccabaeus!!! Photo credit: Owen Egan

Over the past couple of months, I have been sorting through the personal and professional papers, photographs, sketches, scores and literary writings, etc. of celebrated, Montreal-based musicians and former McGill faculty members, Paul Pedersen, Kelsey Jones and Donald Mackey.

This special project has given me an inside look into the lives and careers of these accomplished musical figures. More importantly, working on this project has shown me the great importance of the preservation of our Canadian artists’ works and the context in which they were created. The archival protection of these collections, along with the creation of detailed finding aids, will ensure future scholars have access to information about these key figures as they write the history of post-WWII music in Canada.

We are so excited, the finding aids are almost complete! Soon we will be able to post information about these amazing collections on our new blog, facebook and twitter pages, so please stay tuned!