California Light and Sound

The UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive is pleased to announce that 50 recordings from our collections have been accepted into the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP). 

CAVPP is a partnership of 75 libraries, archives and museums developing a new research resource: an online database of film, video and audio recordings documenting California history.  The database provides "glimpses and whispers" of California's rich audiovisual heritage with the implication that there is much more to be mined and discovered.  The project takes a sampling of media from diverse institutions, digitizes them, and makes them freely accessible through the California Light and Sound Collection on the Internet Archive.

We must save our audiovisual heritage before it is too late; analog recordings are threatened by fragile physical condition, format obsolescence and the lack of playback equipment.  CAVPP, therefore, gathers best archival practices for moving image and sound preservation and establishes low-cost, practical, standards to help collecting organizations move from the analog age to the digital age.  Access is provided by the Internet Archive for teaching, research and study.  Storage of files for long-term preservation is provided by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project.  Funding was received from the California State Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Fifty titles from the Ethnomusicology Archive's collections of historical audiovisual recordings will be professionally digitized and added to the online collections in the summer of 2014.  We selected a sampling of recordings to represent and highlight the variety of audiovisual holdings in the Archive that showcase California history.

Selections from the Archive include:

• A World of Music, a 16 mm documentary short from 1972 about the (then) UCLA Institute of Ethnomusicology
• The 1989 and 1999 UCLA Ethnomusicology recruitment videos (by popular demand!)
• Tamburitza in Los Angeles: Crljenica Family
• Tamburitza in Los Angeles: Biser Tamburitza Orchestra
• Ravi Shankar's Indian Music Festival from 1976
• Several videorecordings of jazz trumpeter and composer Don Ellis
• A variety of recordings from the California-Arts-in-Corrections program
• UCLA Ethnomusicology Spring Festival of Music concerts featuring Nati Cano and the Music of Mexico Ensemble
• UCLA Ethnomusicology Spring Festival of Music concerts featuring Francisco Aguabella and the Afro Cuban Music Ensemble
• Tolowa and Yurok songs and stories recorded by Charlotte Heth from1976 and 1977
• Cahuilla Birdsongs recorded by Brenda Romero, Edith Johnson and Gail Schwartz in 1987.
• Legend and Legacy: Ash Grove's 50th Anniversary panels and workshops, April 2008
• Lecture demonstrations by Regents' Lecturer Mike Seeger, "The Guitar in the Rural South: Searching for a History" and "The Sounds of Pre-media Southern Rural Music," April 2008.
• And more!

We will keep you posted and make an announcement, of course, once the Archive's audiovisual materials are digitized, preserved and made accessible at California Light and Sound.

For additional information:

California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP) Partners

California Audiovisual Preservation Project on Facebook

CAVPP on Twitter

Pamela Vadakan, Mining for California Light and Sound

Digitized Audiovisual Treasures from UCSF Archives Accessible Online

Audiovisual Materials about California Digitized and Online

More Audiovisual Materials about California Digitized and Online

Lambda Archives Accepted into CAVPP; Recordings to Be Added Online Summer 2014

SMPL Renews Partnership with California Audiovisual Preservation Project

Historic films to be digitized

New CHS audio and film recordings digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP)