Music, Theatre, and Dance

Our music, theatre, and dance collection represents a variety of musical genres and formats to support the research, teaching, and performance needs of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

The collection includes a vast array of musical scores, collected editions and composers’ complete works, keyboard music, parts and scores for chamber music, orchestral scores, and all varieties of vocal music. Of note are our opera and musical theatre materials. We also collect works related to the history, criticism, pedagogy, performance, and theory of music.

In the area of dance, we collect materials related to the history, criticism, and practice of Western dance styles, and modern dance in particular.

In the area of theatre, we collect acting editions of plays as well as English-language materials related to theatre history, acting, directing, playwriting, design and production (including costume design), and biographies of stage actors.

We also hold an extensive collection of audio and video recordings that display the breadth of scholarship and creativity within music, theatre, and dance.

While most materials are held at the Music Library, some — particularly in the area of theatre — are also found at the Art, Architecture, and Engineering Library and Hatcher Library. 

Important related collections 

We hold numerous special collections, including the Women Composers Collection, two extensive sheet music collections — the Edison Sheet Music Collection and the Montgomery Collection — and various scores, papers, and recordings. 

In addition to the above collections, the Music Library’s non-circulating items also include early editions of musical scores and books, works by the Bach family, early treatises and histories of music, and approximately 4,000 items derived from the private collection of Belgian jurist and musicologist Jean-Auguste Stellfeld purchased by U-M Library in 1954.