Illustrious pianist and Bay Area treasure Sarah Cahill will perform a concert of music by James Cleghorn at Old First Presbyterian Church on Sunday, January 5, 2025 at 2 PM.
James Cleghorn was San Francisco Public Library's music librarian from 1951 until 1971. He wrote the following mini-autobiographical statement in the sole issue of The Affectionate Bear, a staff publication.
James Cleghorn of the Art & Music dept. informs us that he turned to the study of musical composition many years ago chiefly as a creditable means of avoiding library conferences and committees.
It accompanies a musical miniature (Fugue Mignonne) that Cleghorn published there. Cleghorn was far too modest about his connection to musical composition. Several years before entering librarianship as a profession he published a piano work, How Do You Like This?, in Henry Cowell's legendary New Music Quarterly. He was an active part of San Francisco's musical and cultural life before and during his tenure at the Library.
James Cleghorn, Department Head (image source: "Art and Music Dedication")
James Gilbert Cleghorn was born in Sacramento on July 17, 1913. (In his biographical statement that accompanied his composition in the New Music Quarterly he stated that was born in Berkeley in 1914). The 1920 and 1930 censuses show that his family lived in Berkeley while his father taught at Lowell High School. They later moved to San Francisco. The 1940 census shows that he had completed two years of college and was already working as a librarian (although with that little education, he probably worked in some lesser role at a library). By the 1950 census he was working as a librarian the public library.
He started working at the San Francisco Public Library around 1946. He first worked in the Circulation Department and Cataloging Departments, and at Excelsior and Park Branches. In 1951, he started his tenure as head of the Music Department, taking over its founder Jessica Fredricks.
A librarian's work often is unnoticed behind the scenes - unpublicized yet evident to knowing library users through the collections built and the reference standards attained. Mr. Cleghorn (as his colleagues called him) met these standards. A 1953 San Francisco Chronicle article detailed the department's collection and programming under his leadership. He later assumed leadership of the new Art and Music Center in 1963. He gave a November 19, 1968 presentation teaching regional librarians about the use of scores for composer's collected works. Our files also include another talk he wrote entitled "Forms of Music Publications in the Art and Music Department of the San Francisco Public Library."
At his retirement he was honored by Library Commission Resolution #577.
WHEREAS, the quality of musical life in San Francisco is of the greatest importance to the City and is an area in which the Library performs an office of vital support through its materials and services, andWHEREAS, the career of James Cleghorn during twenty of his twenty-five years with the Library has been concentrated in the Music Department which has benefited by the dedication of his strong subject knowledge and professional skills to the sustaining and development of a distinguished collection now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Public Library Commission extend to him on the occasion of his retirement an expression of deep appreciation for the valuable contribution he has made to the Library and the community; and be itFURTHER RESOLVED, that the Library Commission join the staff and administration in wishing him many years of continued productivity and fulfillment.
Few of Cleghorn's compositions have been published. We own the only two works listed in the WorldCat database, the aforementioned How Do You Like This?, as well as a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem, This Quiet Dust. Performances of his works can be researched in our databases for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner as well as our department's Newspaper Clipping File.
Bibliography:
Affectionate Bear, San Francisco Public Library Staff Association (Winter 1969/1970).
Alves, Bill and Brett Campbell, Lou Harrison: American Musical Maverick (Indiana University Press, 2017).
"Art and Music Dedication," The Colophon March 8, 1963.
Cleghorn, James, "Collected Editions and Musical Monuments," in Music (Bay Area Reference Center, 1968).
Cleghorn, James (Composer) [Musicians and Performing Artists Vertical File]
Cleghorn, James, "Forms of Music Publications in the San Francisco Public Library" (unpublished typescript, Musicians and Performing Artists Vertical File).
Cleghorn, James, How Do You Like This?: Three ironies for piano; Lou Harrison, Saraband ; Prelude (New Music Society of California, 1938).
Cleghorn, James and Emily Dickinson (poem), This Quiet Dust: A Song (Carlvi Music Co., 1960).
Frankenstein, Alfred, "The Music Section of the Public Library," San Francisco Chronicle March 8, 1953.
"James Cleghorn," Sonora Union Democrat September 25, 1987.
"James Cleghorn to Retire," San Francisco Public Library Official Bulletin August 27, 1971.
"Resolution #577," San Francisco Public Library Library Commission Minutes September 14, 1971.
San Francisco Public Library – Main Library – Art and Music Department [Newspaper Clipping File].
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