Thalia Allied Artists

Mission

The Thalia Allied Artists Music Library exists to aid local community orchestras and ensembles with their needs for musical scores and associated instrumental parts, thereby helping area classical music groups present a wider range of works that further their goals to inspire and enrich the community at large.  We also preserve the history of various performing groups that were associated with our umbrella organization, a history that goes back to 1948.

Description

The purpose of Thalia Allied Artists (TAA) is to manage and support a large and diverse classical music library, which in turn supports a wealth of musical ensembles in our area. The library is a vital resource from which musical groups inexpensively borrow much of their needed repertoire. We keep our rental fees modest and rely on donations to meet our operating budget.  A generous donation now would help secure TAA's ability to care for its important collection of classical music scores and parts so that it can remain as a significant resource for many local orchestras and ensembles.
Examples of groups we support include the Thalia Symphony, Philharmonia Northwest, the Bellevue Youth Symphony, the Sammamish Symphony, the Coho Chamber Ensemble and the Octava Chamber Orchestra. With over 1000 complete scores and sets of orchestral and chamber music, this vast collection has been growing since 1948 when TAA was founded. Additionally, we preserve documentation and memorabilia of the diverse regional conductors, composers, and other musicians who have contributed to the rich cultural tapestry of our area.
After being awarded a Collections Care Grant from King County's 4Culture, we embarked on a big push to put examples of our memorabilia on a website.  We hired a professional archivist to supervise the scanning and preservation of our memorabilia.  The scanning project is ongoing and the website has a promising start.  Images of a few of our holdings are below.
Here are descriptions of the images in our gallery:
     1.  Frances Walton conducting a youth orchestra in the mid-1970s.
     2.  An article from the Highline Times, December 7, 1961.  "Amahl and the Night Visitors" featuring Joan Gregg, left, and Ira Jones, right.  Produced by Seattle Opera Company, a past division of Thalia Allied Artists.
     3.  An article from the Bellevue American, November 8, 1973. "American Women" featuring Frances Walton as conductor of the East Lake Youth Symphony.  (Frances Walton directed numerous youth symphonies for Thalia Allied Artists when it was an umbrella for performing groups.  She also conducted the Thalia Chamber Orchestra which is now Philharmonia Northwest.).     
    4.  A bust of TAA founder Mikael Scheremetiew, posed with his violin under a memorial medallion inscribed in cyrillic.  Translated from the Russian it means "Mikael Scheremetiew. Thine is the kingdom of heaven."
     5.  An article from the Bellevue American, November 21, 1963.  "Pictured above are the nine cellists who perform in the Villa-Lobos "Bachianas I."  These are Frances Walton..., Mildred Edmundson, Barbara Reeder, Michael Fuson, Jane Phillips, Joan Selvig..., Jean Merewether, Juliette Cunningham, and Marilyn Swafford.  (These names are not necessarily in correct order reading from left to right, but serve to name the cellists of the orchestra.)."  The concert was performed by the Thalia Symphony Orchestra, a former unit of Thalia Allied Artists.

Recognition

Thank you to 4Culture for awarding the Collections Care Grant, to the Boeing Matching Fund program, and to our individual supporters.