Description
The donation consists of a major portion of the studio orchestra music library of Chicago radio station WGN, including approximately 164,000 parts in over 4,600 folders. Scripts, programs, correspondence, and other miscellaneous archival material accompanied the donation. The collection consisted of music scores and parts for the “Theatre of the Air” program as well as other WGN broadcast presentations. Included were orchestral works and orchestrations to accompany vocal works (many in special arrangements by Rosario Bourdon and others, with reduced instrumentation suitable for theater or salon ensembles), as well as published vocal scores and chamber music. Some vocal scores (and possibly other works) have been withdrawn from the WGN collection or transferred to other stack areas within the Music and Performing Arts Library since 1965.
Acquired by University Extension in 1957 from Chicago radio station WGN, in part through the efforts of School of Music voice professor Bruce Foote, who had appeared as soloist on many WGN programs.
Location/Access
Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
- The collection now resides at the Archives Research Center, having been transferred from MPAL in 2012. See WGN Music Library and Records Finding Aid in the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, for a listing of collection contents.
Index terms
- Bourdon, Rosario
- Chicago: radio broadcasting
- Ensemble scores & parts
- Foote, Bruce
- WGN (Chicago radio station)