Claimed! Organ & choral LP giveaways from the Roberta Bitgood professional collections
Two groups of (mostly) 33¹/³ LP recordings from Roberta Bitgood’s professional collections were offered for adoption at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Americal Guild of Organists, New London County Chapter, held on 6 June 2010.
The first group was comprised of recordings from the organ literature (and one organ workshop) as performed by organ luminaries of the 20th century, including a few of the less well-known, many of whom Roberta counted as personal friends.
Performers included: Mildred Andrews, E. Power Biggs, David Craighead, Catherine Crozier, Marcel Dupré, Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, Lynwood Farnam, Virgil Fox, Howard Kelsey, Max Miller, Thomas Murray, Robert Noehren, Calvert Shenk, Albert Schweitzer, Carl Staplin, Carl Weinrich, William Whitehead, and Alec Wyton.
A few items from this group were claimed by AGO members in attendance on June 6: “Virgil Fox at Symphony Hall,” E. Power Biggs’ album entitled “Stars and Stripes Forever,” an organ workshop by Alec Wyton, and the two recordings made by William Whitehead (including one featuring the organ of the Philadelphia Academy of Music).
The rest of the above group (41 items) remained available for adoption: the updated list is available here. If you are interested in any of these, please give me a call. [Update 25 Jan 2014–The rest of Roberta Bitgood’s organ LPs were subsequently claimed by a single New London County AGO chapter member. The choral collection was donated to the New London Public Library book sale.]
The second group of recordings features choral works, both important and little-known, as performed and conducted by groups and conductors that were of interest to Roberta. A list is not available at this time, again give me a call if you’re interested.