Library Careers: Archival Residency Job Posting April 2024
Call for Residency: University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections
To celebrate the occasion of the 90th birthday of Norma Beecroft, Canadian composer and broadcaster, we invite a current UCalgary student into the University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections as an artist/researcher-in-residence, to navigate, reflect, and respond to materials from the Norma Beecroft fonds in a format of the student’s choosing (artwork, sound piece, text, multimedia).
Deadline for Application: May 31st, 2024 (Applicants will receive response by end of June 2024)
Timeline: July 2024 - March 2025 (Start date negotiable between July and September 2024)
Compensation: $25/hr for 245 hours.
How to Apply:
Click to upload application
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Bio and/or artist statement
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CV (please include current area of study and expected graduation date)
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Example of work (can be a link to website/host)
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Research Proposal (500 words) – how would you connect archival research to your proposed project
Applicants from BIPOC, women, nonbinary and other underrepresented communities are especially encouraged to apply, and proposed work can be connected to or beyond a student’s program of study.
The successful applicant will be contacted by June 30th 2024. The initial research and development phase will take place between July - September 2024. Synthesis of findings and dissemination through on campus activities will take place between September 2024 - January 2025. A public presentation will take place in February or March of 2025 (workshop, screening, artist talk) on the UCalgary campus.
Norma Beecroft Fonds
Norma Beecroft’s fonds (https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/norma-beecroft-fonds) is part of the Richard Johnston Canadian Music Archives Collection, comprised of the fonds of Canadian musicians and composers. Beecroft’s archive consists of correspondence; music manuscripts, ranging from notes and sketches to full scores, of orchestral, chamber and choral music; broadcast manuscripts of lectures and radio scripts about various Canadian composers; material about Beecroft and her career including items from her early education, press clippings, articles, brochures and programmes; sound recordings of compositions, among other materials.
Although the focus of the residency is connected to the Beecroft materials, Archives and Special Collections holds over 12 km of archival materials, and over 230,000 rare and special book materials that would be available to the researcher. The varied collections contain text, photographs, architectural drawings and records, rare books, multimedia, material pertaining to local and regional history, cultural figures, political organizations, and personal collections. The scope of supplemental material, the form of final work, and the nature of the development process would be directed by the practice of the chosen participant in conversation with Archives and Special Collections and Libraries and Cultural Resources staff.
About Norma Beecroft
Norma Beecroft has had a varied career, working as a broadcaster (starting with CBC TV in the 1950s and regular work on CBC radio for decades), composer (studied with John Weinzweig, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Goffredo Petrassi, Bruno Maderna; active in early electronic experiments at University of Toronto’s Electronic Music Studio and Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center), and arts administrator (co-founding New Music Concert Series with Robert Aitken, Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, Canadian League of Composers, Canadian Electroacoustic Community). Her book “Conversations With Post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music” was published in 2015 and she has been the recipient of several awards and honours, including an honorary doctorate from York University (2016) and two-time winner of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton prize for outstanding artistic achievement (1978, 1989).
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CMC composer showcase page for Norma Beecroft provides an overview of works available, with many recordings to stream
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A list of Beecroft materials held at UCalgary Archives and Special Collection: https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/norma-beecroft-fonds
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Bio and list of works from the Canadian Electronic Community page: https://cec.sonus.ca/members/HonMem_Beecroft.htm