These interviews were conducted as part of the spring 2006 Harvard seminar, Before "West Side Story": Leonard Bernstein's Boston, conducted by Carol J. Oja and Kay Kaufman Shelemay. The interviewers were Emily Abrams Ansari, Ryan Bañagale, Shira Brettman, Corinna Campbell, Katherine Chen, Nick Commins, Peter D'Elia, Kara Furman, Giancarlo Garcia, Marc Gidal, Sheryl Kaskowitz, Scott Kominers, Stephanie Lai, Katherine Lee, Drew Massey, Stephanie Samuels, Alex Tan, Derrick Wang, Lily Yeh, and Emily Zazulia.  Requests by students or interviewees to remain anonymous have been honored.

The students completed the interview transcriptions during the course of the seminar which have had only minor additional editing.  We have had the resources to do only limited checking of names, spellings, and other details.  As ethnographers are well aware, interview transcripts are, by nature, representational documents.  Several people working with the same text may produce transcriptions that are quite different.  We are pleased to be able to offer here both transcripts and recordings, tools best used together.

Some materials may be cited in public presentations and publications by permission only.  Contact Kerry Masteller (Loeb Music Library) for information about how to obtain permissions and any other access questions.