Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Notebooks were purchased from Morton Subotnick in 2005. The remaining materials were donated by Subotnick in 2007.
Accruals
Future accruals are likely.
Processing History
Kate Rivers and Shantel Lambert began processing the Morton Subotnick Papers in 2019. Stephanie Akau completed processing and coded the finding aid in 2022.
Transfers
Sound and video recordings from the Morton Subotnick Papers will be transferred to the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. An inventory of this material is available in the Music Division's collection file.
Recordings of the premiere performances of Trembling and Axolotl are available for request in the Recorded Sound Research Center.
Related Material
Electronic music composer Michael Czajkowski, who worked with the Buchla synthesizer in Subotnick's NYU studio during the 1960s, donated the Buchla Model 100 synthesizer on which Subotnick composed Silver Apples of the Moon (1967) to the Library of Congress. Czajowski took over the NYU Buchla studio in 1969, when it moved on campus to the NYU Film School and changed its name to the Composers Workshop. The Buchla modules are available to view with permission from the Head of Acquisitions and Processing. Two posts on the Library's performing arts blog, In the Muse, contain information about the Buchla: Unboxing the Buchla Model 100 and Come for the Stradivarius, Stay for the Buchla 100 Modular Synthesizer .
Scores and sketches for Subotnick's 1983 Library of Congress commission, Trembling , are in the McKim Fund Collection . The Nicolas Slonimsky Collection and Alan M. and Sali Ann Kriegsman Collection contain biographical and subject files about Subotnick, and there is correspondence from Subotnick in the Vladimir Ussachevsky Papers .
A concert of Subotnick's music , including the world premiere of Trembling , from the Library of Congress's Founders Day 2012 Concert is part of the Library's digital collections, as is Subotnick's pre-concert conversation .
Subotnick's first work for the Buchla synthesizer, Silver Apples of the Moon , was selected for the Library's National Recording Registry in 2009 . Electronic music composer Barry Schrader's essay on the piece provides more information.
Preferred Citation
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [item, date, container number], Morton Subotnick Papers, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.