The Center acquired the Peter Michalove Music and Papers in May 2013, and we completed the archival arrangement and description of his analog records later that year. However, at that time the Sousa Archives lacked the technical ability and expertise to properly process his born-digital records that he had saved to his laptop before he passed away. Over the past several years the Center has worked with the University Library’s Digital Preservation Coordinator, Tracy Popp, to develop strategies to preserve these digital records as well as the born-digital records of several other contemporary composers. Working with the Center’s graduate student, Hollis Wittman, since the start of the fall semester we have finally completed the processing of Peter’s digital music scores, recordings of performances of his compositions, as well as his many music lectures.
Peter was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1951 and attended Grimsley High School between 1966 and 1969 where he began composing at an early age. He earned his Bachelors of Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972 and a Masters degree in composition from the University of Michigan in 1973. He later attended the University of Illinois between 1974 and 1976, and studied composition with Salvatore Martirano and Ben Johnson. He completed his DMA in composition in 1976. Shortly after completing his doctoral studies he took a position with the Internal Revenue Service, and remained with the IRS until 1979 when he accepted an accounting position in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. In addition to his work as a composer, Michalove was an active philatelist in the Rossica Philately Society where he researched and presented on the stamps and letters from Soviet Georgia. After retiring from the University of Illinois in 2006, he returned his focus to music composition and continued to write new works until his death December 9, 2013.
Peter’s collection consists of news clippings, photographs, music programs, correspondence, research files, sound and video recordings of performances of his music works and original music compositions documenting his career as a musician and scholar. While large portions of this collection are traditional paper records, nearly all of his original music compositions and recordings of them are exclusively digital files that are now fully accessible through the archival finding aid that was created his collection. For further information about this collection please visit the collection finding aid.