Concert and Theatre Programs Collections
FINDING AIDS
The library has a large collection of concert and theatre programs.
The collection of concert and theatre programs focusing on the musical life in Melbourne Australia 1860s-2008 (70 % of the collection). The remainder of the Collection covers overseas (20%) and interstate (10%) concerts of the same period.
The collection charts the development of Melbourne's first orchestras, various exhibitions and musical festivals (such as the Christmas Festival of 1882 and the International Exhibition Concerts in 1888), the foundation of the Ormond Chair of Music, and later the Musica Viva Society, visits by renowned professional musicians such as Charles and Lady Hallé, Fritz Kreisler, Ignaz Friedman, and Artur Schnabel, the Viennese Boys' Choir, the Ballets Russes, and the Olympic Games Music Festival of 1956.
This list is intended as a guide to finding program collections, rather than providing full details of the content of individual collections.
Rare Music (Parkville)
- Concert and Theatre Programs Collection, 1860s-2013 - predominantly Melbourne and Victorian regional performances.
Full Box Listing. Finding aids for each box. - Barry Tuckwell Collection - Concert programs and publicity
- Marshall-Hall Orchestral Concert Programs, 1892-1910 FULLTEXT - Online
- Theatres, concerts-James Barrett
- Astra Chamber Music Society concert program and promotional material collection, 1956-1980, 1981-2013
Details of individual concerts are list by Astra on website
Southbank Special
OTHER CONCERT PROGRAM COLLECTIONS OF INTEREST
Other concert programs held by the University Library. Catalogue Record list.
In Australia
In the United Kingdom
- Concert Life in 19th-Century London Database and Research Project..." a collaborative research project ..." Currently a work in progress, with an exciting look at the possibilities of these online offerings.
- Concert Programmes 1790-1914, Centre for Performance History, Royal College of Music, London. "This site is designed primarily as a teaching resource for use by undergraduates and postgraduates working on aspects of performance history, reception history and the social and economic history of music... It currently consists of three main modules - From the Benefit Concert to the Recital, 1800-1914, From Promenade to the Ballad Concert to the Music Hall and The Symphony..." Explores "...the complex history of concert life and the formation of musical canon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries..."
- The Concert Programmes Project Online Database has been launched to "document the programme holdings of major libraries, archives and museums in selected regional centres throughout the UK and Ireland. The database currently offers descriptions of some 5,500 collections of music-related performance ephemera held by 53 institutions, including the British Library, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, the national libraries of Scotland and Ireland, the Bodleian Library and Trinity College, Dublin." A search on "Melbourne" or "Australia" lists a number of useful collections.