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May 25, 1998
May 25, 1998
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Rosario Mazzeo (center) is pictured with music professor Linda Burman-Hall and UCSC clarinet instructor Mark Brandenburg at a concert in his honor in 1996.
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UCSC is pleased to announce a gift to the University Library of the Rosario Mazzeo Collection of Clarinet Music. Donated by Mazzeo's widow, Katie Clare Mazzeo of Carmel, the collection of over 1,700 items of clarinet music will constitute one of the major resources for clarinet studies in the United States.
A man of many talents, Rosario Mazzeo (19111997) was a clarinetist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1933 to 1966. He authored numerous articles, including a definitive clarinet text, and was an innovator in the field of clarinet mechanism design, creating the widely used Mazzeo system clarinet.
Mazzeo also inspired and nurtured countless clarinetists as a teacher at the New England Conservatory, the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and UCSC, where he taught from 1966 through 1977 and founded and performed with the Crown Chamber Players. Altogether, he was actively teaching clarinet and coaching chamber music groups for more than 60 years.
Mazzeo's passion for the clarinet manifested itself not only in teaching but in collecting. Along with some 75 historical clarinets (now housed in the Shrine to Music Museum at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion), Mazzeo acquired an extensive library of clarinet music and literature. At his request, the bulk of his collection, which emphasizes 20th-century composers, has been donated to the University Library as a working resource for clarinetists and students. Rare and unique items will be housed in the library's Special Collections, including such first-edition pieces as Alban Berg's Vier Stucke fur Klarinette und Klavier and Igor Stravinsky's Trois Pieces pour Clarinette, and early editions of works by Weber, Frederic Berr, and Friedrich Mueller.
"We are extremely grateful to Rosario and Katie Clare Mazzeo for this important addition to our holdings," said University Librarian Allan Dyson. "The collection will stand as a lasting testament to an inspiring teacher and performer, and to his association with UCSC from its early days until the present."
All materials can be looked up in the online catalogs containing UCSC materials (the Santa Cruz campus's CRUZCAT system, the University's MELVYL® system, and the international OCLC cooperative cataloging system). With the exception of those materials requiring archival storage, the collection is fully accessible to the public through Interlibrary Loan.