Music

Main informational page from the Special Collections Research Center. Scroll down the page to view the individual collections within the archive; click on the "Finding Aid" links to search the contents of these individual jazz collections.

A thorough and excellent guide to begin research on
Chicago-style jazz and the Chicago Jazz Arhcive.

The Special Collections Research Center is the depository for the archive of paper materials and concert recordings by the University of Chicago's Contemporary Chamber Players, a professional performance organization specializing in the performance of new music. The tape archive, which has been digitally transferred to DAT tapes and CD, includes all surviving master recordings for concerts from the mid-1960s to the present. Both print documents and concert recordings can be searched in these finding aids.

Regenstein Library possesses a significant research collection for the study of western Christian liturgical chant. At the core of this collection are microfilms of some 250 medieval chant manuscripts, most of them from France or Italy. The bulk of this material was acquired for the library by Professor Anne Walters Robertson of the Music Department by means of a university grant.

James H. Moore, professor in the Music Department at the University of Chicago from 1976 to 1984, was one of the leading scholars researching seventeenth-century Venetian sacred music. After Professor Moore's premature death in 1984, his parents presented his papers and scholarly research materials to the University of Chicago Library. These included a major collection of primary and secondary sources on microfilm. The microfilms are not yet catalogued, but a handlist of their contents is available from this website. They are available in the Microform Reading Room on the third floor of Regenstein Library.

This eclectic collection of microfilms was acquired for classroom use. The accompanying finding aid will provide users with access to the collection.

"The Wandering Folksong" was a radio program produced for WFMT in Chicago between 1974 and 1985 by George Armstrong. Each program was devoted to a genre, a place, or an individual central to American or British folk music. Mr. Armstrong's family has deposited the master tapes of these programs with the Recordings Collection. For further information about this collection, contact the Music Bibliographer Scott Landvatter.