In Thursday’s (6/25) Musical America, Anthony Brown writes, “Gary Galván, Curator of Music Special Collections at the Free Library of Philadelphia since 2015, was honored on June 21 with the 2026 Eroica Award for Outstanding Service to Music at the Free Library. The award was granted by MOLA: An Association of Music Performance Librarians, at its 44th international conference in Sydney, Australia. Galván oversees the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music, the world’s largest collection of circulating orchestral performance materials; the Henry S. Drinker Choral Collection; and the Sheet Music Collection. ‘Few people have done more to reconnect overlooked music with modern audiences than Gary Galván,’ said Inger Marie Garcia de Presno, president of MOLA and orchestra librarian for the Berlin Philharmonic. Galván and his team have been at the forefront among music librarians in producing critical editions and providing access to rare and underrepresented repertoire, particularly works by Latin American, women, and Black composers. Since its founding in 1983 … MOLA [Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association] has grown to more than 550 members representing 362 organizations in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia.”
