Series consists of correspondence between family members, love letters, friends, and others, as well as journals, yearbooks and vital, childhood, and general records created by or about the Weisgarbers.
The correspondence begins in September 1940 with Beth’s frequent communication with her family and friends after arriving at Eastman School of Music. Elliot’s love letters to Beth begin around Christmas of that year. Other individuals, such as Elliot’s family and friends gradually make appearances as well. Other individuals of note, that occasionally make appearances, are composers and musicians such as Ross Lee Finney, Howard Hanson, Gustave Langenus, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, Roger Sessions, Halsey Stevens, Henry Cowell, and Benjamin Britten (1963, Aug 10).
This correspondence provides great insight into both Elliot and Beth’s understanding of the world before and during the war and gives a special insight into their personal lives as they began life together. Both Elliot and Beth describe their surroundings in incredible detail and often write with personal styles that show their emotional state.
Beginning in 1954, the correspondence provides a background for the mass migration of UNC faculty members, Weisgarber included in 1959/60, to UBC. The correspondence details Elliot’s first years at UBC and the excitement of the being on the ground floor of the new Music department. The correspondence also contains applications for funding and reports to his financial sponsors, chiefly the Canada Council.
Beginning in the mid-1960’s, the correspondence gives evidence of Elliot’s introduction to Japanese culture and his subsequent study of Japanese language and music. It contains letters back and forth from Japan starting in 1965. The correspondence contains personal details about Elliot that were not previously made public that are central to understanding the music he wrote after 1966. These details are in letters between Elliot and friends he made on board ship during his second trip to Japan in 1966.
For the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s Weisgarber continued his cultural visits to Japan and Hong Kong clearly becoming an authority on Shakuhachi music with many students and composers requesting his advice. Alongside his interest in Japan, Weisgarber’s correspondence details the normal operations of his professorship at UBC in addition to personal correspondence between his wife Betty and daughter Karen. Upon retirement from the UBC faculty in 1984, the correspondence shifts to more informal back-and-forth with friends and relatives in addition to letters relating to Weisgarber’s composition work. He remained quite active as a composer in retirement and traveled frequently to different festivals or performances that were featuring his compositions. Another major undertaking in his retired years, beginning in the mid-1990s, was authoring a book on Italian-American musician and composer Aurelio Giorni. Weisgarber was in touch with Giorni’s widow who was providing source material for the project. The last year of correspondence (2002) mainly contains condolences from friends of the Weisgarber’s directed towards Beth and Karen. The remainder of files in this series includes professional documents of Weisgarber, in addition to some undated or misfiled correspondence and some sealed documents by donor’s request.
