Library Guides: Music: Listen &amp; Watch

Streaming Audio & Video Collections

The streaming databases listed below are available to the UC Berkeley community by subscription. Remote or off-campus access is restricted to UCB students, faculty, and staff.

New in May 2021:
Ethnomusicology Global Field Recordings. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.

Classical Performance in Video This link opens in a new window
Streaming video of 1,600 performances of classical music repertoire, including over 200 operas, 75 dance works, and 250 documentaries. Synchronized transcripts—such as translations of opera texts—run alongside most titles.
Classical Performance in Video contains 2,000 full length titles from music publishers and performing houses like C Major Entertainment, EuroArts, Opus Arte, Arthaus Musik, CLC Productions, and the BBC. Content includes over 1,600 performances in video, including 200 full operas and 75 dance titles; over 60 master classes; over 250 full-length documentaries; over 50 full length interviews; and musical scores to accompany over 100 of the most studied works. More than 250 new titles are added to Classical Performance in Video per year.
Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) This link opens in a new window
Audio files of compositions of classical music, folk music, opera, jazz, country music, early rhythm and blues, musical theater, experimental music, electronic music, early rock and Native American music from the United States. Complete original liner notes and essays from independent record labels and sound archives.
Contains audio files of over 1200 CDs, featuring 7500 compositions of classical music, folk music, opera, jazz, country music, early rhythm and blues, musical theater, experimental music, electronic music, early rock and Native American music from the United States. This broad spectrum of American music is derived from recordings available on the New World Records label, and works of contemporary classical American music from labels such as CRI, Albany, innova, Cedille, XI, Pogus, Deep Listening, and Mutable. QuickTime 6.5.2 or later required.
Medici.tv This link opens in a new window
An audio-visual collection of classical music with 1,300 programs of concerts, operas, ballets, documentaries, master-classes, educational films and artist profiles, available on demand. The service includes 100 concerts broadcasted live each year.
Since its official launch in May 2008, www.medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of music and arts lovers. Building on the success of webcasts from the Verbier Festival in 2007, www.medici.tv has since offered high-definition webcasts from many other leading festivals, including Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Denis, Aspen, Glyndebourne, and Lucerne, as well as from such music venues as the Opera National de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and Milan's famed La Scala. Many operas, ballets, and concerts performed by the world's top-flight artists and orchestras have been webcast both as live events and later as video-on-demand (VOD).
Naxos Music Library (NML) This link opens in a new window
Collection of Western classical music including classical music, jazz, world, folk and Chinese music. Includes notes and biographical information on composers and artists.
A collection of Western classical music including the complete Naxos and Marco Polo catalogs of over 170,000 tracks. Includes classical music, jazz, world, folk and Chinese music. Includes notes and biographical information on composers and artists.
Naxos Music Library Jazz This link opens in a new window
Provides an expanding, mixed selection of streamed recordings by artists from jazz legends to contemporary jazz on hundreds of labels, including Blue Note Records, Warner, EMI, and Fantasy. (Naxos Fantasy Jazz)
Offers close to 20,000 tracks of jazz from 1,900 albums. Over 500 jazz artist are represented.

NB. When you finish using Naxos Music Library and Naxos Jazz please click the LOGOUT button at the upper right corner of the screen. This will help allow access for another UCB listener.

Music and Performing Arts Online, a cross-search (combined search) of several streaming audio databases by Alexander Street Press available at UC Berkeley, includes the following components:

Music Online: American Music This link opens in a new window
Formerly known as African American Song, this database now includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Also includes songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more. Forms part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online.
Formerly known as African American Song, or American Song. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music Online.
Classical Music Library This link opens in a new window
A database of classical music recordings containing more than 50,000 tracks cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Over 32 major labels are represented. Recordings include early written music (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to contemporary composers. All genres are represented including vocal and choral music, chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental and opera. The database provides multiple recordings of major works. Forms part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online.
"A database of classical music recordings containing more than 50,000 tracks cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Over 32 labels are represented. Recordings include early written music (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to contemporary composers. All genres are represented including vocal and choral music, chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental and opera. The database provides multiple recordings of major works.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new window
Includes approximately 35,000 tracks of world music and sound recordings from the archives of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Categories include American folk, blues, bluegrass, and jazz. Forms part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online.
Includes approximately 35,000 tracks of world music and sound recordings from the archives of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, cross-referenced to a database of supplementary reference information. Categories include American folk, blues, bluegrass, and jazz. Music Online.

Contemporary World Music
Contemporary World Music delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database will contain important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. protests, and more. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online brings together 2,000 hours of audio recordings from field expeditions around the world, particularly from the 1960s through the 1980s—the dawn of ethnomusicology as a codified discipline. Building on their predecessors’ early sound collecting methods, ethnomusicologists began to fill in gaps on the world music map, traveling to field sites to record and document music in its broader cultural context. These collectors’ bodies of work contain some of the most comprehensive surveys of regional music on record, including Mark Slobin’s survey of Afghan music, Nazir Jairazbhoy’s survey of classical Indian music, and Hugh Tracey’s survey of southern and central African music. Part of Alexander Street Press's Music and Performing Arts Online

Historical Recordings, Open Access

Cylinder Audio Archive, UC Santa Barbara

Belfer Cyclinders Digital Collection,
University of Syracuse

The Virtual Grammophone,
Library and Archives Canada

Early Gramophone Records and Phonograph Cylinders, Phonobase

National Jukebox and Audio Collections, Library of Congress

Internet Archive Audio Recordings

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Music: Listen & Watch

Streaming Audio & Video Collections

Historical Recordings, Open Access