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Music Resources in Library Special Collections

This guide will point researchers to relevant collections and resources. If you have any questions or suggestions for additions to the guide, please contact Head of Curators and Collections, Heather Briston.

Toward Ethical and Inclusive Descriptive Practices in UCLA Library Special Collections

LSC is committed to remediating harmful description by creating and implementing an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. We aim to:

  • Be clear about what we know, how we know it, and what we don't know
  • Embrace baseline description as a tool to improve the discoverability of all our materials
  • Demonstrate an understanding that description is a continuous and necessarily iterative endeavor

Read more about our past and current approaches to description in Toward Ethical and Inclusive Descriptive Practices in UCLA Library Special Collections.

Music Resources in UCLA Library Special Collections

The UCLA Library Special Collections holds a large amount of primary source materials pertaining to music. This guide is intended as a starting place to point researchers to these materials and also serves as a basic orientation on using Library Special Collections holdings.

Hot Lips sheet music  Toscanini conducting in rehearsal 1986Blasters at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles, 1981, Weber col.

Film and Television Music Collections

Library Special Collections holds a large amount of film music archival materials including materials for silent and sound films. For a more complete listing of these holdings, consult the Online Archive of California, using the keyword search term, "film music."

Emigre Composers

The collection consists of manuscripts and reproductions of piano-vocal scores of popular songs, a few with obbligato instrumental parts, most with texts in English or Hungarian. Also included are published sheet music of songs, and popular Hungarian dance music arranged for small ensembles, most with parts.

The collection consists of materials relating to the Austrian-American composer, Ernst Toch. Included are music manuscripts and scores, books of his personal library, manuscripts, biographical material, correspondence, articles, essays, speeches, lectures, programs, clippings, photographs, sound recordings, financial records, and memorabilia. Also included are manuscripts and published works of other composers, as well as Lilly Toch's letters and lectures. 

The collection consists of autographed manuscripts of orchestral works, operas, songs, and chamber music; reel to reel recordings of performances; full scores and parts not necessarily in the composer's own hand; and numerous items of correspondence to and from the composer.

Women Composers

Music Industry & Organization Collections

The Monday Evening Concerts, first known as Evenings on the Roof, began in 1939 under the direction of Peter Yates. The concerts featured chamber music and experimental works. The collection consists of programs for the Monday Evening Concerts of Los Angeles presented at the Los Angeles Museum of Art (1971/72-1982/83 seasons).

Dorrance Stalvey was a composer, educator, and director of the Monday Evening Concerts series in Los Angeles from 1971 until his death in 2005. The collection includes extensive correspondence between Stalvey and other composers/presenters, musical materials including scores, audio recordings and electronic media, and Monday Evening Concerts programs, promotional materials and reviews. Stalvey's work as an educator is documented in syllabi and lecture notes. There are also personal documents of Stalvey's, including diplomas, passport, and letters to his parents.

Lawrence Morton (1904-1987) played the organ for silent movies and studied in New York before moving to Los Angeles, California, in 1940. He was the executive director of Evenings on the Roof (later renamed Monday Evening Concerts) from 1952-71. The collection consists of concert programs, 6 scrapbooks, and correspondence of composers related to the Monday Evening Concerts of Los Angeles, 1955-67.

Musical Theater

Included here are materials related to all forms of musical stage performances including, but not limited to musical fantasies, revues, comedies, plays, satires, melodramas, sketches, vaudeville productions, burlesque, etc.

Click Here for materials to musicals represented in UCLA Library Special Collections.

Sound Recording Collections

Here you will find information about specific sound recording collections. These collections consist of sound recordings only. Be aware that many other collections (not listed below) contain sound recordings in addition to other types of music materials.

Oral History Interviews

Musical Arrangements

Library Special Collections holds collections of musical arrangements. Selections include: