Music and Scores

Emory has extensive music collections of audio and video recordings in physical formats in the Marian K. Heilbrun Music and Media Library and access to large subscription streaming music and video databases. Emory also has extensive collections of physical and online music scores.

Sound and Video Recordings (CD, LP, Audiocassette, DVD, VHS, Laserdisc)

Emory’s sound recordings collection consists of about 25,000 titles on compact disc and 8,000 titles on LP phonodisc, in addition to a small number of audiocassettes. Music recordings include jazz, folk, popular, and world music, with the largest concentration in Western art (classical) music. Our DVD and Blu-Ray video collections contain numerous operas and live music recordings.

In addition to these recording formats, the Music and Media Library carries the equipment needed to play them, including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, audiocassette, and LP players. Portable USB CD/DVD players are also available for checkout.

Streaming Music and Video

Emory subscribes to two large music streaming providers, each with several databases: Naxos and Alexander Street Press. The majority of this streaming content is Western art music, with Naxos Classical alone offering over 140,000 album titles, but also significant offerings in world music, popular music, and jazz. Naxos also offers an app for smartphones with offline listening available. Emory also subscribes to several music-content video streaming services:

Music Scores

The Music and Media Library holds 45,000 scores for study or performance, mostly art music of all time periods. Included in these scores are around 3,000 miniature (mini) scores, designed for following along while listening to live or recorded music. Also significant are music for chamber ensembles (up to 9 players) and research-oriented editions such as collected works of individual composers, historical sets, and facsimiles of music manuscripts and early editions. Performance scores with individual parts for large instrumental ensembles and choruses are held by the Department of Music. 

Online Musical Scores

Emory subscribes to several online scores databases: Alexander Street Press Classical Scores Library and Recent Researches in Music Online (RRIMO). These scores can be discovered through the databases themselves, or through Library Search. Both of these databases allow scores to be downloaded without Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.

Music in Other Emory Libraries

The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library has several collections containing specialized musical resources, including a collection of Confederate sheet-music imprints and music materials in the African-American history collection, in addition to rare manuscripts and facsimiles and papers of important musical figures.

Pitts Theology Library maintains an outstanding collection of hymnals and books on hymnody, as well as other sacred-music resources, both in the stacks and in their special collections.

Selected musical scores which have been digitized are also available in the Emory Digital Collections online repository.