CONSERVATORY LIBRARY NEWS
Recently, the library fund of the Kazakh National Conservatory was replenished with books from the personal library of our Kazakhstani citizen and a KNC graduate, a famous ethnomusicologist, Dr. A.B.Kunanbaeva, who has been working in the United States for many years as a Professor at the most prestigious universities of Berkeley and Stanford and who leads the Silk Road House Public Organization which promotes the culture of the Central Asia. In the scientific field, A.B.Kunanbaeva is recognized as an epic poetry specialist, Turkologist and anthropologist specializing in the study of Kazakh traditional music. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the most significant and valuable part of the library is made up of publications dealing with the epic creativity of different peoples including the anthologies of the epic poetry and books published in the West such as the large and valuable ethnomusicological work in the creation of which Dr.Kunanbaeva took a part, - "The Music of Central Asia" (Indiana University Press, 2016), or the fundamental encyclopedic publication "The Middle East. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 6” (London & New York, 2002).
The donated books include works on ethnography, anthropology, folklore, history, cultural studies, philology, foreign ethnomusicology and Turkic studies which are necessary in the training of future ethnomusicologists (Karl Reichl "The Oral Epic: Performance and Music" - Berlin, 2000; Janos Sipos "Kazakh Folksongs. From the two Ends of the Steppe" - Budapest, 2001; Mihaly Hoppal "Shaman Traditions in Transition" - International Society for Shamanistic Research, Budapest 2000). It worth to mention the rare editions of Kazakh traditional music published in China ("Kazakh Folk Songs" in digital notation; "Songs of the Kazakhs of Xinjiang" in three volumes 1985-1992; "Kazakh Dombyra Player from China": a collection of kyuis in digital notation, 1990).
A number of provided books are dedicated to the history of Kazakhs (M.B.Olcott "The Kazakhs" - Hoover Institution Press, 1995; M.Fergus, J.Jandosova "Kazakhstan: Coming of Age" - Stacey International, 2003; G.Krist. Alone through the Forbidden Land. Journeys in Disguise through Soviet Central Asia 1939).
Particularly noteworthy are the works of Russian ethnographers which are of bibliographic value, among them a rare edition of V.A.Obruchev's "Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin" book of 1947, or a major work of the outstanding orientalist, ethnographer and archaeologist S.P.Tolstov - "In the Footsteps of the Ancient Khorezm Civilization" of 1948.
A large number of sources are associated with the cultures of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia as well as the Mongols, among them rare academic publications on ethnography (S.P.Tolstov, T.A.Zhdanko, S.M.Abramzon, N.A.Kislyakov "Peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan: ethnographic essays" in two volumes. Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1963). The editions from the series: "Monuments of Folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East" with audio attachments are unique.
It is no secret that many works of Kazakhstani researchers have also become a bibliographic rarity by now. Therefore, it seems valuable to replenish many of the lost editions dedicated to Kazakh music. So, for example, another (second) copy of the monograph by B.G.Erzakovich: "Song Culture of the Kazakh People" (1966), books by B.Sh.Sarybaev, albums on Kazakh applied art by P.Margulan, all collections of kyuis by Aytzhan Toktaganov and others.
In addition, CDs were sent with recordings of Kazakh zhyrshi Bidas Rustembekov (33 terme and the epic Körughly), Elmira Zhanabergenova, famous dombra player Aitzhan Toktaganov, “An Anthology of Qazakh Epic Songs and Dobra Kyuis” and the DVD: “A Journey to Epic Qyzylorda”, which ere released in the USA and is still unknown to our performers and musicologists.