Music Library Special Collections

This non-circulating collection is named for the late Herbert A. Belkin, a music attorney and executive of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi). Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is a re-issue record label known for its innovative production of audiophile-quality sound recordings – namely Super Audio Compact Discs (SACD) and half-speed mastered Super Vinyls. MFSL opened its doors in the late 1950’s and filed bankruptcy in 1999.

The collection is an archive of the definitive classical, rock, and jazz recordings produced by MFSL. It includes close to 500 compact discs and over 200 vinyl LPs, all of which were created by first-generation analog master recordings (known as ‘Original Master Recordings’).  Individual recordings are findable through the Libraries catalog. Beyond the commercial recordings, the Music Library houses about 200 test pressings for many of these albums. In addition, the collection includes several boxes of business documents from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.

Belkin Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Business Papers and Recordings

The Berman Music Foundation collection consists of thousands of CDs, LPs and DVDs of jazz and rock music findable through the Libraries catalog. The collection was created by Lincoln musician Byron L. “Butch” Berman over his lifetime and was part of the Berman Music Foundation, which he established in 1995. Berman died in 2008 at the age of 58. The collection was donated to the University Libraries in 2012.

  Butch Berman, Music Collection  Berman shows

Wilbur Chenoweth (1899-1980), American composer and a Nebraska native, was born in Tecumseh, NE on June 4, 1899. He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and taught in the School of Music from 1925 to 1938. While at the School of Music he was professor of piano, organ and theory, and was also choirmaster and organist at First Plymouth Church. Chenoweth wrote the Nebraska fight song, Hail Varsity. He moved to Santa Monica, CA in 1938 and was professor at Occidental College from 1938 to 1945. He was also organist and choirmaster at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena. In 1990 the Chenoweth scholarship was established at University of Nebraska-Lincoln for studies in theory and composition. Archives has a collection of his compositions and a few cassette tapes of his works.

  Wilbur Chenoweth, Music Scores

The collection contains 6 leather bound volumes of popular Civil War era songs and piano sheet music.  The collection also contains one handwritten letter to "Friend Carrie" dated May 18, 1865, after the end of the Civil War. The unidentified author writes about their experience in Civil War battles near Columbus, Georgia. The writer mentions Spencer carbines, General Emory Upton, the 3rd Iowa Infantry Regiment, and their experience being sick with diarrhea during battle.

Civil War, Letter and Sheet Music Collection

George "Pee Wee" Erwin (1913-1981), born in Falls City, NE, was a prominent trumpeter in the 1930's and 40's playing with such men as Joe Haymes (1931-3), Isham Jones (1933-4), and Tommy Dorsey (1937-9). The collection consists mainly of jazz charts and reel-to-reel and cassette tape recordings made throughout his career. Some tapes have been digitized and preserved; they are cataloged in the University Libraries' catalog.

 Pee Wee Erwin, Jazz Recordings and Charts   George "Pee Wee" Erwin catalog search results

Ruth Etting (1897-1978), a native of David City, NE, left Nebraska for Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to become a "torch singer", recording artist, Ziegfeld girl, and movie star. The archives contain videorecordings, sheet music, recordings (LP's, cassette tapes, and reel-to-reel tapes), photographs, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, scrapbooks, and correspondence which chronicle her career in the 1920's and 30's. More information about Ruth Etting is available through the following resources.

 Ruth Etting Music Collection   Ruth Etting images

Willard Kimball (1854-1939) was the founder of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln School of Music and its first director (1894-1909). Kimball's papers, books, scrapbooks, and personal effects are housed in Archives. Of special interest are papers pertaining to Kimball's involvement in the formation of the School of Music as a private institution and then his activities in support of its subsequent purchase and annexation to the University of Nebraska.

 Willard Kimball, Music Papers

Performances from UNL's Glenn Korff School of Music is an ongoing project of the Libraries to preserve and present recitals and concerts given in the Glenn Korff School of Music at UNL from 1948 through the present. Printed programs are presented online for large ensemble concerts, as well as for faculty and student recitals, guest recitals, small ensemble concerts and operas. Some performances are also available in streaming audio, and staff continue to digitize and add audio files to the online collection.

Performances from UNL's Glenn Korff School of Music

The Carlton and Territa A. Lowenberg Collection on Emily Dickinson and Music consists of materials relating to musical settings of the poems of Emily Dickinson. It includes unpublished and published scores set to poems of Dickinson, correspondence with composers and publishers, programs, newspaper clippings, drafts of Lowenberg's book Musicians Wrestle Everywhere, correspondence about the Emily Dickinson Music Society, and cassette recordings containing performances of song settings of Emily Dickinson's poems.

 Carlton and Territa A. Lowenberg, Collection of Emily Dickinson and Music

Robert Owens III (1925-2017), born in Denison, TX and raised in Berkeley, CA, was an African-American composer and performer. Owens studied music on a GI bill in Paris and Vienna beginning in 1946. He returned to the U.S. from 1957-59, then moved to Hamburg, Germany and later Munich for the rest of his career as a composer, pianist, and actor. He set songs with lyrics by Langston Hughes, Emily Bronte, and Sara Teasdale, among others. He also wrote operas and chamber music. The collection, donated by Dr. Jamie Reimer, consists of five boxes of published and unpublished scores, concert programs, reviews, photographs, and other memorabilia.

  Robert Owens Music Collection

Audun J. Ravnan, (1925-2009), was born in Norway. He came to the United States on an international scholarship in 1947 and became a nationalized citizen in 1956. The next year he joined the piano staff of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, where he served as chair of the piano faculty and became the George Holmes Distinguished Professor of Music. He became a Professor Emeritus in 1993 when he retired from active teaching.

During his illustrious career he was recognized with the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, The Mayor’s Arts Award from the City of Lincoln, and in 1981 became the first individual artist to receive The Governor’s Arts Award, Nebraska’s most prestigious honor in the arts, “for significant contributions to the cultural life of Nebraska”.

In 2012 his wife and daughters donated to the University these recordings and programs from a number of his performances.

Search for Audun Ravnan: Performances from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Glenn Korff School of Music

Ernest ("Jack") Rokahr (1922-2021), born in Lincoln, Nebraska, was a passionate collector of opera scores, developing relationships with music shops and vendors all over the world. Rokahr was a World War II veteran, a 1948 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a man of enthusiasm who held a deep well of stories. He lived the last years of his life in Los Angeles, California.

The collection includes documents related to the Rokahr Family Archive. The Rokahr Family Archive, donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2002 by Jack Rokahr, houses over 8,000 opera scores and books about opera dated from 1764 to the present. In addition, it contains French opera posters, Andre Gill caricatures, and opera recordings on LP, CD, cassette, and videocassette. The collection also includes documents related to the Rokahr Family Archive, including autobiographical material, letters, articles, opera programs, photographs, and catalogs of the collection.

Issues of La Lune and L’Eclipse and other four-page newspapers from Paris. Many frontispieces are by the artist, André Gill. These are the originals of the framed digitized items in the collection.

 Jack Rokahr, Opera Papers  Opera Scores from the Rokahr Family Archive

The papers, books, and personal effects of John M. Rosborough (1878-1969), head of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln School of Music Theory Department (1910-1919) and then Dean of the School of Music (1919-1929), have been donated to the Music Library. While on the faculty of the School of Music, John Rosborough organized a choral group known as the "Great Cathedral Choir," which toured extensively during the thirties and attained a national reputation for its excellence. Much of the collection is concerned with the choir, its members, and its repertoire. The papers and books of John Rosborough represent a large segment of the history of Lincoln's and the University's musical life. Two items in Rosborough's personal library which were donated and are of particular interest are a copy of Jean Philippe Rameau's Traite de l'harmonie (Paris, 1722) and Vincenzio Panerai's Principii di musica (Firenze, ca. 1800). These are now in the Libraries catalog.

 John Rosborough, Papers and Scores

Wagner Singers—Breckbill Postcard Collection contains over 600 postcards dating from the 1900s to the 1930s. The bulk of the collection consists of portraits of opera singers in costume for Richard Wagner opera performances. Also included are postcards with pictures of opera sets for Wagner operas, sets and singers in costume for operas by other composers, and a few musician portraits. The collector, David Breckbill, was a musicologist, record critic, and collector who taught in the music department at Doane College.

David Breckbill, Wagner Singer Postcards   Wagner Postcards Online Exhibit

Emanuel Wishnow (1910-1994) joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) in 1933 as a violin instructor and in 1941 became the conductor of the University Symphony. Wishnow served as the director of the School of Music (1958-1972), when he oversaw the development of Westbrook Music Building and Kimball Recital Hall. Wishnow retired in 1975.

The papers of Emanuel Wishnow include UNL School of Music and personal correspondence, programs from various musical concerts, newspaper clippings, instructional materials for violin and piano, research materials, scrapbooks, classroom notebooks, and photographs associated with his career.

Emanuel Wishnow, Music Papers

The Zinneker collection consists of 531 jazz 45 rpm recordings. The collection was received in the University Libraries sometime before 1994 and includes recordings of major jazz figures from the 45-rpm era. A file lists the recordings by performer, title, record company and record number.

Zinneker Jazz 45 rpm recordings

The Zlotsky Collection consists of 12 bound volumes of sheet music, including piano music, dance music for piano, and songs. Most of the music was published in the 1850s and 1860s in the United States and England, and it was bound by private owners at that time. There are many examples of title pages illustrated with lithographs, some of which are colored. Sheet music was one of the earliest formats that used lithography, and the collection illustrates the early history of lithography, from black and white, to single color, to four-color printing. Judith Zlotsky was a print collector, and collected these volumes for the interest of their prints.

Judith and Norman Zlotsky, Sheet Music Collection