NY Philharmonic Receives Gift From Leon Levy Foundation to Digitize Archives

The New York Philharmonic has received a $2.4 million grant from the Leon Levy Foundation to digitize 1.3 million pages of material from its Archives, making them available to scholars, musicians, students, and the general public over the Internet. This will be the first phase of a comprehensive long-range project to digitize almost the entire New York Philharmonic Archives. The first phase, which is scheduled for completion in three years, will digitize documents, as well as a small sample of audio and video files, from the New York Philharmonic's International Era, 1943 to 1970. The project will launch with Leonard Bernstein's marked conducting scores, scheduled for availability online in spring 2010.  
 
The Archives, the oldest and most comprehensive collection of any symphonic orchestra, contains approximately 8.5 million pages dating back to its founding in 1842, with holdings that include correspondence, business records, orchestral scores and parts, photographs, concert programs, and newspaper clippings, as well as more than 7,000 hours of concert and broadcast recordings dating from the 1920s. 
 
Shelby White, founding trustee of the Leon Levy Foundation, said, "My husband, Leon, grew up in New York and loved going to hear the New York Philharmonic. I am delighted that the Leon Levy Foundation can help make available to thousands around the world this magnificent collection of music and memorabilia from 1943 to 1970." 
 
"This is a monumental gift - the largest ever for archival work at the New York Philharmonic," said Barbara Haws, the Orchestra's Archivist and Historian. 
 
"It will allow us to expand our mandate to make this remarkable collection available to an even wider public, and to create high-resolution preservation copies. It's a tremendous tribute to the Leon Levy Foundation that it has embraced and supported a unique project that is so comprehensive in scope, thus allowing researchers around the world access to the Philharmonic Archives as if they were sitting in our reading room. It will also offer a unique lens through which to view the cultural history of New York and America and their relationship with the rest of the world."
 
New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert commented: "The Philharmonic's Archive is a vital resource - for me personally, and for musicians and scholars from around the world, who use it to consult scores, recordings, program notes, and performance history. The significance of this gift cannot be overstated, and we are deeply indebted to the Leon Levy Foundation for having the foresight to help us preserve and share this precious collection." 
 
An additional goal of the project is to create a new digital model for historic collections, using an open-source platform for managing digital documents that can be shared with other cultural institutions. As part of the project, scholars will be able to perform meaningful searches across all collection formats. Ultimately, the hope is that, within the digital platform, researchers will share their findings, post questions, or even "tag" an unidentified person in a photo, leading to new realizations about a wide variety of topics, people, and events.
 
The New York Philharmonic undertook a three-year pilot study of the digitization project, and - because of the vastness of the Archives's holdings - convened a panel of archivists, scholars, librarians, musicians, and educators to discuss where to begin. Although the collections contain material dating from as early as 1842, the panel chose the post-World War II period to be the first phase, making available material relating to America's emergence as an international leader, New York City as the cultural center, and the New York Philharmonic as a world-wide ambassador - both as a touring institution and through the use of television.
 
This time period, The International Era (1943–1970), is distinguished by Leonard Bernstein's artistic leadership, along with important developments in the American arts: the rise of the first truly international orchestra; the creation of Lincoln Center; the influence of foundation and government support of the arts; the first year-round musicians' contract; the impact of television on the performing arts; and the end of the  all-male Philharmonic. The digitizing process for this period will include scores/parts, programs, document folders, press clippings, and visual materials, in addition to selected audio and video recordings. 
 
Following the implementation of this phase, the Philharmonic plans to digitize The Founding Era (1842–1908) and then The Modern Era (1909–1943).  Although only a few audio and video examples are included in Phase I, this will lay the groundwork for the integration of a portion of the Orchestra's vast collections in these areas in the future.  
 
The Leon Levy Foundation, founded in 2004, is a private, not-for-profit foundation created from the estate of Leon Levy, an investor with a longstanding commitment to philanthropy. The Foundation's overarching goal is to support scholarship at the highest level, ultimately advancing knowledge and improving the lives of individuals and society at large.