Print Music Collection | FAU Libraries

The Print Music Collections at Florida Atlantic University Libraries contain more than 30,000 musical scores and documents organized in four large collections: American Popular, Classical, Jewish, and Cantors. These materials date from the 17th through 21st centuries and include rare and unique manuscripts, published scores, and sheet music. The repertoire includes scores for solo voice, choir, solo instruments, jazz combos, chamber ensembles, and orchestra.

These collections provide an invaluable resource for both scholars and performers and we continue to accept donations that enhance our holdings and preserve this rich musical heritage.

Cantor's Collection

The Cantors Collections contains the archives of accomplished cantors and rabbis. Materials include manuscripts, published scores, synagogue and choral music and personal papers which provide historical overviews of their musical careers and intellectual creativity

To view the finding aids, please follow these links:

American Popular Print Music Collection

The American Popular Print Music Collection contains four collections: American Sheet Music (currently in progress), Dance Band Combos, Winner Collection of Glenn Miller Manuscripts, and Sybil Weiner Sheet Music Collection. The repertoire includes music for theater, film, operetta, choir, jazz combos, and a variety of Negro spirituals and folk songs. The music of this collection reflects life and culture in the United States during the late 19th through mid 20th centuries and serves as historical documentation, offering scholars insight into the literature, poetry, language, patriotism, immigrant experience, and ethnic plurality in American society at that time. This rare or original source material is valuable for a new generation of musicians inspired to study, perform, and reinvent American music. The elaborately illustrated sheet covers are examples of visual folk art from the period and offer additional cultural insight through imagery.

Classical Print Music Collection

The Classical Print Music Collections contains two collections-- the Miriam and Roman Waldman Music Collection and the Derna DePamphilis Collection.

The Miriam and Roman Waldman Music Collection is a large collection of Russian and Polish scores. Mrs. Waldman was a mezzo soprano and the daughter of a cantor from Johannesburg, South Africa. She married Roman Waldman, a classical pianist, in Israel. The collection was donated by Miriam Mandell Waldman in 1995 after a scud missile destroyed the ceiling of a storage building at her home in Herzliah, Israel.

The Derna DePamphilis collection includes opera scores (many with her performance notations) and libretti. The libretti collection consists of late nineteenth and early twentieth century libretti from various publishers. The majority of the works are from Italian composers, but there are also some representations of French, German and English works.

Jewish Print Music Collection

The Jewish Print Music Collection dates from circa 1897-present and includes original manuscripts from renowned, handwritten music from American and European-born cantors, and rare—if not sole-surviving—scores from major American Jewish publishing houses no longer in existence. It also houses one of the nation’s largest collections of American Yiddish theater music, comprised of piano-vocal scores spanning the years 1890-1960. The collection also contains music from Europe, Israel, and Latin America. The repertoire includes scores for solo voice and choir (in various languages), solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and Klezmer combos. This music serves as historical documentation, offering insight into the immigrant experience, literature, poetry, languages, and ethnic plurality of the Jewish Diaspora. The elaborately illustrated sheet covers are examples of visual folk art from the period and offer additional cultural insight through imagery.