The collection consists of noncommercial recordings of radio broadcasts of primarily classical music. The largest portion of the collection consists of broadcast of The New York Philharmonic, with selected concerts from 1952-1963. Conductors of the New York Philharmonic concerts on these recordings include Franco Autori, Leonard Bernstein, Guido Cantelli, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Paul Paray, George Szell, and Bruno Walter. Guest soloists include Claudio Arrau, Robert Casadesus, Van Cliburn, Clifford Curzon, Rudolf Firkušný, Zino Francescatti, Jascha Heifetz, Myra Hess, Byron Janis, Martha Lipton, Artur Rubinstein, Irmgard Seefried, Rudolf Serkin, and Richard Tucker. Orchestras with a smaller representation of recordings in the collection include the Boston Symphony Orchestra in concerts conducted by Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch, the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Guido Cantelli and Pierre Monteux, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eduard van Beinum, Josef Krips, and Rafael Kubelík. Opera recordings include selected Salzburg Festival broadcasts from 1952-1958, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Rudolf Baumgartner, Karl Böhm, Joseph Keilberth, and Herbert von Karajan. Böhm also conducts for the 1956 reopening of the Vienna State Opera House. Bayreuth Festival productions from 1953 and 1954 are conducted by Joseph Keilberth, Hans Knappertsbusch, and Clemens Krauss. Bayreuth vocalists include Hans Braun, Gré Brouwenstijn, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Josef Greindl, Hans Hotter, Martha Mödl, and Eleanor Steber. Recordings of selected Firestone Hour (later the Voice of Firestone) programs from 1952 to 1956 contain opera, operetta, and orchestral selections as well as popular songs. Featured vocalists include Eugene Conley, Nadine Conner, Jerome Hines, Roberta Peters, Risë Stevens, and Ferruccio Tagliavini.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
195 recordings
Repository/Collector:
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
The WPA Radio Scripts consist of final drafts of radio plays and other texts produced by the Federal Theatre of the Air. Most scripts are from either the New York or Los Angeles offices of the Federal Theatre Project. In some instances copies of scripts for the same program but from different jurisdictions are included in the same series. Notable programs represented in the collection include adaptations of the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde, operettas by Gilbert & Sullivan, a series called A CAPELLA IN BRONZE featuring the WPA Negro Radio Chorus and focusing on stories of particular interest to African-Americans, adaptations of books such as Dickens' PICKWICK PAPERS and plays such as Tolstoy's REDEMPTION, Goldsmith's SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER and Molière's TARTUFFE. A 1939 series celebrating Jazz entitled THE STORY OF SWING devoted episodes to Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and the Dorsey Brothers. TURNING POINTS IN FAMOUS LIVES dramatized key moments in the lives of John Paul Jones, Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Pasteur, Isaac Newton, Billy the Kid, Joseph Stalin, and others. THE LIVING NEWSPAPER, adapted from a concurrent Federal Theatre Project stage series, dramatized contemporary problems facing listeners in daily life.
Content types:
Other
Extent:
73 boxes
Repository/Collector:
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
The BCMP collection consists of many dozens of reel to reel audiotapes of radio broadcasts aired over WMUA during the 1970s and early 1980s by and for the universitys African American community. Included is a range of locally-produced public affairs, cultural, and music programming, with some content licensed from around the country. A few of the tapes are associated with the Five Colleges National Public Radio affiliate, WFCR.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
300 recordings
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
The American Revolution collection includes hundreds of hours of recordings from WBCN during the period 1968-1974, along with posters, ephemera, videos, oral histories, and other associated materials. The audio and video content has been digitized by our partners, Lichtenstein Creative Media, and will be made available to the public through our digital repository. Materials are currently in the process of being transferred to UMass.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
Hundreds of hours
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
The WFCR Collection contains nearly 4,500 reel to reel recordings of locally-produced radio programs, reflecting over fifty years of the cultural and intellectual life of western Massachusetts. Drawing upon the talents of the faculty and students of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and UMass Amherst), the collection offers a remarkable breadth of content, ranging from public affairs to community and national news, cultural programming, childrens programming, news and current events, scholarly lectures, classical music, and jazz.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Formats:
Reel-to-reel and Digital tape (DAT, DCC)
Extent:
462 linear feet
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
Letters and cards from thirty-seven (37) states, Canada and Puerto Rico acknowledging reception of radio stations, W5XA and KWEA. The collection contains photographs, some broadcast news articles on "Paul the Radio Man," in the 1930s and some in the 1960s and a few items on KWKH and W. K. Henderson. It also includes correspondence, photographs and new articles on the Experimental Television Stations W9XX,W5XX and W5CBU. There are about 100 photographs of persons involved with the stations and views of the studio and equipment.
Content types:
Text, Still image, and Other
Formats:
Open reel tape, Photographic print, and Text document
Extent:
1.5 linear feet
Repository/Collector:
Noel Memorial Library, Northwest Louisiana Archives at LSUS