Special Collections

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Arnold Schoenberg / Hans Nachod

This collection contains items that once belonged to Schoenberg's cousin Hans Nachod, an operatic tenor for whom the role of Waldemar in Gurre-Lieder was created. It includes many letters from Schoenberg to Nachod, and a few from Nachod to Schoenberg. It also includes a number of music manuscripts in Schoenberg's hand, among which are early songs and arrangements.

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Bert Hile

The Bert Hile Collection comprises over 2,500 recordings (LP albums and 12-inch singles) of disco music. This collection was received as a gift from Mr. Hile, a professional DJ based in Dallas. It includes "million seller" recordings by Donna Summer, Giorgio Morodor, Chic, The Bee Gees, Barry White, et al, as well as rare disco-style "covers" of Motown and rock hits. These recordings do not circulate but can be viewed in the online catalog by searching for Bert Hile.

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Card Catalog Index to Program Notes

The Music Library has a large collection of programs from major U.S. symphony orchestras and university orchestras. The collection covers mainly the 1940s through the early 1970s. Over that period, staff members created a card catalog index of the program notes contained in the programs. The index is searchable by composer, and under each composer's name, by title. Each entry gives the name of the orchestra and specifies the year, which concert in the season, and the page numbers of the particular notes.

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College of Music Program Books

Digitized program books from the UNT College of Music, beginning with the 1988-1989 school year.

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College of Music Recordings

Digital versions of doctoral, ensemble, faculty, guest, and senior recitals beginning in Spring 2006.

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David Earl Holt

Composer and performer David Earl Holt toured with the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sonny Dunham, Dean Hudson, Tony Pastor, and Victor Lombardo in the 1940s before eventually becoming the director of the Austin Public Libraries. After his retirement, Holt began composing wind band music, and he resumed playing the trombone. His original compositions are available for download from the David Earl Holt Collection website. In addition to music, the collection, which is a gift from Holt, includes correspondence, photographs of the big bands, an oral history interview, and memorabilia.

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Don Gillis

Composer, arranger, and music educator Don Gillis was a producer for NBC Radio during the Toscanini era. This collection, donated by Barbara Gillis after her husband's death in 1978, includes a complete set of tapes from the radio series Toscanini: The Man Behind the Legend. It also includes manuscripts and other copies of Gillis's works, an unpublished autobiography, pictures, scrapbooks, etc. The library also has many Gillis items in the general collection and in the Music Special Collections Catalog.

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Duke Ellington

The Duke Ellington Collection was assembled by Rhodes Baker, a Houston attorney whose lifelong hobby was collecting Ellington recordings. It consists of over 1,000 Ellington recordings. Among these are 88 reel-to-reel tapes of rare performances by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, including radio, television, and live appearances in the U.S. and abroad. Many of these tapes are the only existing recordings of these performances. More than 800 commercially-released recordings of the Ellington orchestra or sidemen associated with him are also included in the collection.

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Edna Mae Sandborn Music Rare Book Room

This room was established in memory of Edna Mae Sandborn, Assistant Music Librarian from 1963 to 1973, by members of her family. It houses the Music Library's core collection of rare scores and books about music. Included are first editions of Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals, the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and other important musical works. The collection was greatly enriched by the acquisition of the personal music rare book collection of the late Dr. Lloyd Hibberd, Professor of Musicology. One of Dr. Hibberd's special interests was opera of the French Baroque, in which he collected extensively. Holdings include a number of early editions of the operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully; these are described in detail in the Lully Web Project. Several other items housed in the Sandborn Room are being scanned; these can be viewed in the Virtual Rare Book Room.

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Eugene Conley

Internationally renowned tenor Eugene Conley was artist-in-residence at the University of North Texas from 1960 until 1978. The collection of more than 250 tapes includes recordings of Conley's performances (air checks, concerts, and operatic productions) and of performances by his students (opera workshops and student recitals).

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Floy Case

Floy Case was a pioneering country music journalist based in Fort Worth, Texas. This collection consists of memorabilia from her family's musical life, her career as a reporter, and country music personalities and venues notable in her time.

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George Bragg

George Bragg (1926-2007) was founder of both the Denton Civic Boy Choir and the internationally renowned Texas Boys' Choir. Bragg donated his music library - a collection that includes sheet music, audio and video recordings, photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, and many other valuable materials - to his alma mater, the University of North Texas.

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Gérard Souzay

In his discography The Recorded Performances of Gérard Souzay (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT), Manuel Morris chronicles the 43-year singing career of Gérard Souzay. The University of North Texas Music Library received a gift from the estate of Manuel Morris, which includes the research materials and manuscripts for the discography. The extensive collection of the recordings that Mr. Morris used in his research was also included with this generous gift.

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Helen Hewitt

Musicologist and organist Helen Hewitt was Professor of Music from 1942 to 1969. Upon her retirement, she donated a significant collection of organ music to the Music Library. A variety of additional materials came to the library at the time of her death. The Hewitt Microfilm Collection was acquired by Dr. Hewitt over many years of research on Ottaviano dei Petrucci, the first printer of music. While studying in Europe in the 1930s, she examined many 15th-century chanson manuscripts. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, she obtained films of most of the manuscripts she had once worked with directly. These films are a valuable resource for research in Renaissance music. Many of Dr. Hewitt's books, scores, and recordings enhance the general collection. A page of medieval chant manuscript and correspondence from many renowned musicologists and organists such as Willi Apel and Jean Langlais are now part of the special collections.

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Jazz Lecture Series

Since spring of 1982, UNT has sponsored an annual 10-week lecture series featuring legendary performers and scholars in the world of jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Michael Brecker, J.J. Johnson, Leonard Feather, and Elvin Jones. Each lecture is available on audio tape; eight lectures are also available on video tape. Tapes of more than 100 artists are included, and new ones are added every year.

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Jean-Baptiste Lully

UNT's collection of first and second editions of Lully operas comes from the personal library of Dr. Lloyd Hibberd. The Lully Web Project is intended to provide a multimedia thematic catalog of all of UNT's early editions of Lully's operas and ballets, and to be a nucleus for collecting information on those works.

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John Gilliland

Donated to the University of North Texas Music Library, the John Gilliland Collection is composed of audio recordings of the internationally acclaimed "Pop Chronicles" radio series. Included in the collection are the broadcast shows of the "Pop Chronicles 50's & 60's," and the "Pop Chronicles 40's," as well as the raw interviews that were used in the creation of the series. Approximately 200 reel-to-reel tapes, and more than 50 DAT and cassette tapes yield over 230 hours of pop music history.

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Julia Smith

Bequeathed by the distinguished American composer upon her death in 1989, the collection consists of approximately 60 cartons of music books, scores, correspondence, memorabilia, manuscripts, photographs, and recordings. It includes important materials relating to her work as Aaron Copland's first biographer. Among the most important materials in the collection are several autograph manuscripts by Smith as well as by Copland.

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Leon Breeden

Leon Breeden was director of Jazz Studies at North Texas from 1959 to 1981. The Jazz Studies program, first of its kind in the country, rose to international prominence during Breeden's tenure. A meticulous archivist, Breeden saved every significant memo, letter, and photograph from his years at North Texas and organized these materials into 26 scrapbooks. The Breeden Collection also includes 365 LPs of North Texas alumni (including Marvin Stamm, Lou Marini, Lyle Mays, and Marc Johnson), 538 recordings of North Texas jazz lab band performances, and more than 200 instructional books, scores, and recordings. It is a monumental chronicle of the trials and triumphs of the first years of jazz education in America.

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Lloyd Hibberd

Musicologist Lloyd Hibberd (1904-1965), Professor of Music from 1945 to 1965, was an avid book collector who exerted tremendous influence over collection development in the Music Library both during and after his tenure. Rare books and scores, purchased on his recommendation, were acquired by the library with the help of his vast network of connections with rare book dealers. At his death, the university acquired his entire 10,000-volume personal library from his estate. These volumes are shelved not only in the Music Library, but also in many other subject areas. Rare materials from his library have greatly enhanced UNT's music rare book collection.

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