STEAM Heat: Libraries Bringing Arts to Teaching and Learning

Join your colleagues for a day-long conference on integrating arts resources into librarian teaching and learning. 

Keynote: Performing Arts Collections and Engagement: 100 Years of Building Community at the Nation's Library

 Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres, Assistant Chief, Music Division, Library of Congress

Since 1925 and the founding of the “Concerts from the Library of Congress” series, the Library of Congress Music Division has been an international leader in providing meaningful opportunities for researchers and visitors alike to engage with performing arts collections through concerts, educational programs, broadcast projects, and digital content. Hear how the Library of Congress embraces strategic collaborations, private philanthropy, collections development, and communications to expand the users it reaches and serves, both locally in Washington, DC, and around the world. The Library of Congress Music Division is home to the largest performing arts collection in the world, with over 25 million items in just the Music Division’s holdings (special collections in music, theater, and dance, and general collections in music), in addition to the separately curated recorded sound, motion picture, Copyright, and American Folklife Center holdings. 

Nicholas Alexander Brown-Cáceres is the Assistant Chief of the Library of Congress Music Division, where he helps oversee the collections and activities of the largest music library in the world. He is also adjunct faculty in library and information science at Catholic University, was recently appointed to a five-year term on the Maryland State Library Board by Governor Wes Moore, and serves as 2023/2024 Chair of the American Library Association Public Awareness Committee. Brown-Cáceres recently served as acting Co-CEO and COO for Communication and Outreach at the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System. He previously worked at Washington Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, and Harvard University, is a past president of the DC Library Association, and served in the 215th Army Band. He is currently a member of the Rural Library Network’s Community Advisory Committee and advisory boards for the Catholic University Department of Library and Information Science and University of Maryland iSchool. Brown-Cáceres is a contributor to Popular Music and Public Diplomacy (2018, Transcript Verlag) and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts (2015, Oxford University Press). His writing has appeared in HuffPost Blog, College Music Symposium, Marketing Library Services, Collaborative Librarianship, and The Horn Book. He holds a Master’s in musicology from King’s College London, a Master’s in library and information studies from Catholic University, and a B.A. in music and history from Brandeis University. nicholasalexanderbrown.com

Musicians/Filmmakers: Galileo’s Daughters 

Screening of Perpetual Motion, Talk Back, Musical Performance

Vocalist Sarah Pillow enjoys a unique career, drawing on her equal expertise in her interpretation of jazz, classical, and early music repertoire. Beginning her career as a jazz singer, Sarah won best vocal solo in a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. She went on to study classical singing at Oberlin Conservatory, while ‘moonlighting’ with fellow jazz musicians in gigs at the Oberlin Inn. Sarah has toured the United States and Canada with her jazz quartet, her crossover project, Nuove Musiche, and her early music ensemble, Galileo's Daughters. She has performed as both chorister and soloist at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in NYC, and her performances in operatic works have resulted in critical praise, with “a genuinely genre-busting voice, full and vivid” by The Washington Post in modern operas by Gisle Kverndokk; and “splendid” and “radiating calm” by The New York Times for her portrayal of the Queen in the 12th-century “Play of Daniel” in NYC. Sarah spent the coronavirus pandemic making weekly ‘Quarantine Anthems’ on the Buckyball Music YouTube channel. More information and recordings can be found at buckyballmusic.com.

Lutenist Christopher Morrongiello, a former British Marshall Scholar, is a graduate of the Mannes College of Music, Royal College of Music, and University of Oxford, where he earned a doctorate in historical musicology. As a recitalist, he has performed to critical acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. He was a prizewinner in the BBC Radio Two Young Musician of the Year Competition and a recipient of a Marco Fodella Foundation Scholarship for studies and research in Milan, Italy. In recognition of his excellence as a scholar, teacher, and performer, the Lute Society of America conferred upon him its first Patrick O’Brien LSA Seminar Lectureship. Morrongiello was a longtime student of Patrick O'Brien (1947–2014), widely considered one of the greatest pedagogues in the history of the guitar and lute. Heralded as an innovative director of large-scale dramatic works, Dr. Morrongiello has a gift for bringing the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods to life in its literary and social context. Dr. Morrongiello is a professor in music history at Hofstra University and directs the Hofstra Collegium Musicum. He is a founding member of the Venere Lute Quartet, directs the New York-based Bacheler Consort, and is a frequent guest artist of many leading early music groups. Morrongiello has recorded for EMI, Avie Records, Gamut Music, the Lute Society of America, Visionaire, and the BBC. The Metropolitan Museum of Art produced several beautiful music videos of his playing on lutes in its renowned musical instrument collection

Composer, percussionist and NASA Solar System Ambassador Marc Wagnon can be heard on over 20 recordings, playing both acoustic and electronic vibraphone and percussion. Marc is composer-in-residence at Le Métathéâtre of Tamco, an arts collective in Geneva, Switzerland. Marc is an avid astronomy enthusiast, has built two telescopes and is a member of the Solar System Ambassadors for NASA and JPL. His current project is “Jazz@stronomy” - a collaboration with The Girls Club on the Lower East Side, bringing jazz and a show about the cosmos to their planetarium. More information can be found at buckyballmusic.com and marcwagnon.com

Music Therapy as Integrative Medicine

Joanne V. Loewy DA, LCAT, MT-BC, Director, The Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System 

The Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine has provided those facing disease challenges with complementary modalities to increase comfort and to extend wellness from the hospital bed to clinic, and to the home for continuity of care to daily monitoring.

From pre-natal parents to infants, young children through adulthood; whether cancer, pulmonary problems, neurologic dysfunction or emotional challenges-our music therapists have been addressing patients of a myriad of populations for 30 years. This presentation will highlight some of our research and clinical practice.

The conference is open to all in the profession. Morning refreshments and lunch are included with registration.

10th Annual Herbert Biblo Academic Libraries Conference

Co-presented by LILRC, NCLA ASLD, and SCLA DASL

Code of Conduct

For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.