Music Special Collections include rare editions, manuscript scores, and music archives. The strengths of Music Special Collections are focused in harp music, viola music, popular American music of the twentieth century, opera, ballet and other dance music, early sheet music, hymnals, French chansons, and historical methods and treatises. Some of the most important larger manuscript collections and archives include: the Primrose International Viola Archive, International Harp Archives, Capitol Records Archive, Percy Faith Orchestrations, RKO Vaudeville Collection, Bonime Collection of Radio Music, the Brunning and Early Sheet Music Collections, Gina Bachauer Archive, Bachauer Piano Foundation Archive, George Verdak Collection of Dance Music, Thurston Collection of Rare Music and Autographs, Paisiello Opera Manuscripts, and numerous archives of individual LDS musicians, including Reginald Beales.
The Music Recordings Archive (MRA) includes historical audio formats from all time periods and geographical origins including: cylinders, Edison Diamond Discs, 78 rpm discs, LP discs, wire recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, DAT, compact discs, DVD-A discs, etc. Content in the Music Recordings Archive is mostly limited to musical performances but includes all kinds of music from around the world.
Music Special Collections can be accessed in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections reading room on the 1st floor of the Harold B. Lee Library.
Hours are M-F 8 am to 6 pm and Sat 10 am to 6 pm.
For information, contact David Day at david_day@byu.edu.