MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy Leopold at (847) 491-4890 or at w-leopold@northwestern.edu

May 30, 2003

Magical History Tour With the Beatles

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Rare original lyric manuscripts by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, an unused ticket for the Beatles’ 1964 American tour, personal letters from Lennon and Yoko Ono and hand-colored lyrics by McCartney are but a few of the items on view in a free, public multimedia exhibit about the legendary Beatles and their music at Northwestern University.

“The Beatles: A Musical History Tour” is on display in the Music Library on the second floor of Deering Library and runs through Aug. 31. Deering Library is entered through Northwestern University Library, 1970 Campus Drive, Evanston.

Visitors can listen to the music that made the Fab Four famous and watch video clips of their concerts, films and media events. A multimedia display featuring audio and video clips that track the Beatles’ career from Liverpool to Apple Records includes the group’s American debut performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Viewed by an audience of more than 73 million people, that performance resulted in media frenzy and is considered one of rock and roll history’s most significant events.

“Multimedia clips capture the excitement of the music and irresistible personalities of the performers,” says Birdi Dawson, the exhibit’s curator and a reference librarian in Northwestern’s Music Library. “They allow visitors to experience the songs and hear the Beatles talk about their music and the pleasures and challenges of working together for almost a decade.”

The idea for a Beatles exhibit began taking shape when Dawson discovered that the University Library owns several original Lennon and McCartney lyric manuscripts. The exhibit coincides with a class on the Beatles that will be taught by Gary Kendall this summer. “The Beatles, an Interdisciplinary Mystery Tour” is taught yearly by Kendall, Northwestern associate professor of music , and is one of the University’s most popular classes.

The exhibit also includes original American and British album covers, songbooks, sheet music, magazine covers, photos, facsimilies of manuscripts from the renowned British Library and an autographed brochure of Astrid Kirchherr’s famous Hamburg photos of the young Beatles. An envelope with the signatures of all four Beatles is prominently displayed among the memorabilia.

The Lennon/McCartney manuscripts, watercolor lyrics by McCartney, and Lennon/Ono letters to composer John Cage are part of Northwestern University Library’s John Cage Notations Collection. The collection includes approximately 400 samples of music notation gathered from composers during the 1960s.

Many other materials in the exhibit are on loan from curator Dawson’s personal collection. “Like millions of fans, I have been passionate about the Beatles and their music since they came into our world back in 1964,” says Dawson.

For exhibit information, contact Dawson at (847) 491-3297. For Music Library hours, call (847) 491-3434.