McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Schulich School of Music Performance Archive
Collection
.5 gigabytes of graphic material (670 files : pdf)
419 gigabytes of recordings (7138 files : mp3, mp4)
The Schulich School of Music is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The McGill Conservatorium of Music was established in 1904, and the Faculty of Music of McGill University in 1920. In 1955, under acting dean Marvin Duchow, three departments were created within the Faculty: Theory, Keyboard and Voice, and Instrumental. The McGill Opera Studio, founded by Luciano and Edith Della Pergola, followed shortly after in 1956. As the number of students and areas of study grew, the Faculty of Music moved into Royal Victoria College in 1971, subsequently renamed the Strathcona Music Building in 1972. The Pollack Concert Hall, built for the Faculty of Music and located in the Strathcona Music Building, was inaugurated in 1975.
Over the ensuing years a number of areas of study were added to the faculty, which today offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the Department of Music Research (Composition, Music Education, Musicology, Music Technology, Music Theory, and Sound Recording areas) and the Department of Music Performance (Brass, Early Music, Ensembles & Conducting, Jazz, Organ, Percussion, Piano, Collaborative Piano, Strings, Voice, and Woodwind areas). In 2005, the Faculty of Music changed its name to the Schulich School of Music of McGill University and opened its new music building, now known as the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building. This building also houses the Marvin Duchow Music Library, CIRMMT (The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology), and the Tanna Schulich Concert Hall.
Print programs were previously collected and transferred to the McGill Library for preservation. These are found in a collection of bound volumes arranged by concert season, which have been digitized and are accessible via the library catalogue.
Audio and video recordings of concerts were previously maintained by the Marvin Duchow Music Library in the McGill Concert Recordings Database. The database contains concerts from 2008 onward.
The collection consists of programs and recordings of ensemble performances (including opera) by students, faculty members, and guest artists associated with the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and performed at one of the School's halls (Pollack Hall, Redpath Hall, Tanna Schulich Hall, and Clara Lichtenstein Hall), as well as some performances at venues outside McGill.
Born-digital program and recordings transferred to the McGill Library on an ongoing basis by the Schulich School of Music.
The collection is arranged by concert season on the series level and by the concert hall where the performance took place on the subseries level. Each event or concert is represented as a file. Where available, digital access copies of the audio or video recording and/or the program for the event are linked at the file-level.
The Schulich School of Music provides McGill-only access to a concert recordings database of large ensemble performances (including opera) from 2008 to the present. Each recording is accompanied by a corresponding concert program. Selected video recording performances are also available to all via the Schulich School of Music YouTube channel.
If you are a McGill student or faculty member and would like to have copies of the audio and/or video files for your personal educational or research use or if you have questions regarding the publisher(s) and/or rights holders of each piece, please contact us via email. Please note that master use rights for most Concert Recordings are owned by the Schulich School of Music, therefore permission must be obtained from the Associate Dean of Research for public dissemination.
Copies of audio and/or video recorded Schulich School of Music performances are provided for personal and private use only. Necessary permissions for current and future use of these recordings e.g. web page, audition materials, etc. must be obtained from rights and licence holders (associated performers, composers, publishers, etc.).
Here is a list of resources with the types of permissions needed for broader dissemination. Please note this is not an exhaustive list, but is intended to serve as a quick guide:
SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) www.socan.com
Performance and broadcasting rights
SODRAQ (the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada)
www.sodrac.ca
Mechanical rights (producing physical copies of CDs and DVDs; downloading (but not streaming)
Professional Music Publishers’ Association (Association des professionnels de l’édition musicale-APEM) www.apem.ca
Local Quebec organization that provides guidance on these issues (especially music publishing and copyright)
A selection of bound print concert programs have been digitized and are available as through the Library Catalogue. These concert programs are arranged by concert hall and by year.
Accruals expected regularly. New concerts are added to the collection on a monthly basis.