Vivian Perlis
| Vivian Perlis | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 26, 1928 Brooklyn, New York |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Occupation |
Oral historian Former director of Oral History of American Music |
| Partner(s) | Dr. Sanford J. Perlis |
Vivian Perlis (born April 26, 1928) is an American musicologist and the founder and former director of Yale University’s Oral History of American Music.
Vivian Perlis was born in Brooklyn, New York. After growing up in Long Island, N.Y., she attended the University of Michigan, studying classical harp and piano. In addition to her bachelor's degree, she earned a master's degree in music history at the University of Michigan.
Vivian eventually moved to Westport, Connecticut with her husband, Dr. Sanford J. Perlis, and three children. While performing as a harpist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, she took a job as a reference librarian at Yale University in 1959.
As a music librarian for Yale, Perlis worked with The Charles Ives Papers. In 1968, she had an opportunity to interview the elderly Julian Myrick, Ives’ insurance business partner. Recognizing the profound usefulness of recorded memories such as these, Perlis began collecting interviews with other acquaintances of Charles Ives. These amounted to sixty-two tapes and transcripts. In 1974, Perlis used this collection to write the book Charles Ives Remembered, which was the first documentation of a musical figure through the use of oral history. In 1975, the book won the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey Award, their most prestigious book award. Perlis was the first female recipient, and this was the first time the award was given for an American musical subject. The book was also honored with the Connecticut Book Publishers Award.
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