Musicology Commons^™

What We’Ve Managed To Transcribe Thus Far: Lessons From The Blythe Owen Letter Transcription Project, Marianne Kordas

Faculty Publications

In 2016, the music librarian at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI launched a project to transcribe approximately 2,000 by twentieth-century American composer Blythe Owen into typed, keyword-searchable documents. The goal of the transcription project is to make these letters more accessible beyond their current archival setting, and thereby lay the foundation for further inquiry into Owen, her works, and the people she knew – among them pianist and pedagogue Rudolf Ganz, African-American composer Florence Price, and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Managing such a large project has proven challenging, but worth the effort. This article describes the methodology, successes, challenges, …