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joe salerno
On 1/30/2012 7:20 PM, Gerald Fabris wrote:
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> Thomas Edison NHP News Release
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>
>
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> For Release: Monday January 30, 2012
> Contact: Jerry Fabris
> Phone: 973-736-0550 x48
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> Early European Edison Phonograph Recordings Released
>
> WEST ORANGE, NJ – Today the National Park Service announces the first-time release of 12
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> historic sound recordings made by Thomas Edison’s recording engineer Theo Wangemann on
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> wax cylinders during 1889-1890 in Germany, Austria, Prussia, and France. The recordings
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> include the voices of eminent German historical figures Otto von Bismarck and Helmuth
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> von Moltke, and several performances by important musicians of the period. The sounds
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> are available on-line in MP3-format at:
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> http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/theo-wangemann-1889-1890-european-recordings.ht
>
> m.
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> On Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:00 noon, historian Patrick Feaster, will present a
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> one-hour program about the recordings, titled Theo Wangemann: The Man Who Made the
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> Phonograph Musical. This presentation will explore the life and career of Theo
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> Wangemann, who was arguably the world’s first professional recording engineer. Also at
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> the program, collector Stuart H. Miller, M.D. will exhibit the phonograph used by
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> Wangemann in Europe during 1889-1890. The program will be held in the Laboratory Complex
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> at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, 211 Main Street. The entrance fee to the park
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> is $7.00, children under 16 are free. Seating is limited and reservations are required.
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> Reservations can be made by calling 973-736-0550, ext. 89.
>
>
> Museum Curators first cataloged the damaged wooden box containing the wax cylinders in
> 1957, found in the library of the Edison Laboratory. In 2005, the National Park Service
> completed a multi-year project to individually catalog every historic sound recording in
> the museum collection. Curators noted that the box contained 17 brown wax cylinders in
> fair and poor condition, several broken with large pieces missing. No title list or
> other identification survived in the box with the recordings, so the recordings could
> not be identified until they were heard. In 2011, the park's Curator of Sound
> Recordings digitized 12 of Wangemann's 17 cylinders using a French-made Archeophone
> cylinder playback machine, saving the audio as Broadcast Wave Format files. (Five of the
> cylinders could not be digitized due to their condition.) Once the audio could be
> heard, historians Stephan Puille and Patrick Feaster identified the sounds and wrote two
> scholarly essays, which are included with the recordings on the Thomas Edison National
> Historical Park website.
>
> Entrusted by Thomas Edison with the task of applying the newly developed wax cylinder
> phonograph to music, Theo Wangemann oversaw the first regular production of pre-recorded
> cylinders at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey in 1888-89, ushering in
> the beginnings of the American musical recording industry. Then, in 1889-90, Wangemann
> played a prominent role in introducing Edison’s invention to continental Europe.
>
>
> ---------------------------
>
> Stephan Puille is a conservator of archaeological finds and technical employee at the
> Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin) - University of Applied
> Sciences. For more than ten years he studies the history of sound recording from the
> beginning up to 1914, holds lectures and writes articles on the subject. In addition, he
> is a phonograph and phonogram collector who concentrates on early and historically
> significant items. Contact: Stephan Puille, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft
> Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstraße 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany. E-mail:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Patrick Feaster ([log in to unmask], 812-331-0047) is a researcher and educator
> specializing in the history and culture of sound media. A co-founder of FirstSounds.org
> and two-time Grammy nominee, he received his doctorate in Folklore and Ethnomusicology
> in 2007 from Indiana University Bloomington, where he is currently a lecturer in the
> Department of Communication and Culture, a member of the Media Preservation Initiative,
> and an instructor for the School of Continuing Studies.
>
> Thomas Edison National Historical Park is a National Park Service site dedicated to
> promoting an international understanding and appreciation of the life and extraordinary
> achievements of Thomas Alva Edison by preserving, protecting, and interpreting the
> Park’s extensive historic artifact and archive collections at the Edison Laboratory
> Complex and Glenmont, the Edison family estate. The Visitor Center is located at 211
> Main Street in West Orange, New Jersey. The Laboratory Complex is open Wednesday
> through Sunday from 9:00am to 5:00pm. For more information or directions please call
> 973-736-0550 ext. 11 or visit our website at www.nps.gov/edis .
>
> -NPS-
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>
>
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Joe Salerno
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