NY Phil Transfers Vast Music Archives Online

The vaunted and highly valued NYC institution the New York Philharmonic is in the process of porting over a stupefyingly vast collection of sheet music, conductor's scores and other musical memorabilia according to new report.

The respected NYC establishment has had a team of archivists uploading thousands of pages of documents daily to the rapidly-updating official archive website and the fruits of their labor are now available to enjoy by all.

The first phase of the project, covering the span of years from 1943 to 1970, has now been completed and all materials are online. More than 1200 works by over 300 composers is included in this unprecedented series of uploads.

Phase II begins now, with archivist Barbara Haws leading her team on bringing materials from 1842 to 1908 onto the website.

Phase III begins following the completion of that, which will focus on the years 1908 to 1943.

Haws tells the New York Times that sheet music is far and away the most popular feature on the updated archives site so far, stating, "Musicians are always looking for how other musicians dealt with challenges in a part."

The painstaking process of transferring the paper material to digital format includes porting over even margin notes and conductor's comments and other attendant comments - including those of no less than famous NY Phil maestro Leonard Bernstein on some scores.

To visit the newly completed NY Philharmonic archives site and view the materials uploaded in Phase I, click here.

To read the New York Times article on the matter click here.