No matter what your taste in music may be, you can hear it live at the Library. Classical, jazz, American theater, folk, ethnic, pop ... all performed at free concerts.

Or, you can research music in our recorded sound collections, on our Web site or in our reading rooms. Also, we have commissioned hundreds of original musical works, including "Appalachian Spring," Aaron Copland's masterpiece written for dancer and choreographer Martha Graham.

The Library's music program has a long and varied history. For example, in 1935, five stringed instruments by the Italian master Antonio Stradivari, came to the Library. Gertrude Clark Whittall donated them to be used in regular performances in the Coolidge Auditorium. She also established a foundation to maintain these instruments and to fund a series of free concerts.

Broadcasts of many of the Library concerts are heard nationwide on radio, and also on our Web site.