Introduction
Lists of Library subscription streaming resources for the performing arts can be found below, along with free online resources and help materials. If you are off-campus and trying to access Library resources, use the links below for access to these tools so that you can log in with your NetID and password using the Library's subscription.
For physical media items, search using the library catalog. See the Finding Scores & Recordings page on the Finding Music Materials guide for search tips.
Library Subscription Resources
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Classical Music Library This link opens in a new windowClassical music library is a classical music service that enables listening and learning at library and home computers. In addition to full recordings of the works on the site, it includes program notes, composer biographies, and images cross-referenced to the recordings. Genre incorporate vocal and choral, instrumental, stage and screen, orchestral, chamber, and opera and operetta, with a particular focus on contemporary music and women composers. Recordings can be downloaded for a fee. Covers music from the medieval time period to the 21st century.
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DRAM Online This link opens in a new windowA scholarly resource of recordings, including CD quality audio, liner notes and essays from New World, Composers Recordings (formerly Composers Recordings Inc./CRI) and other important labels. The basis for the collection is the diverse catalog of American music recordings by New World Records. Other contributing sources include the CRI, Albany, innova, Cedille, XI, Pogus, Deep Listening and Mutable Music labels.
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Ethnographic Sound Archives This link opens in a new windowEthnographic Sound Archives Online brings together over 2,000 hours of previously unpublished historic field recordings from around the world, alongside their supporting field notes and ethnographers’ metadata, opening new paths for the study of music in its cultural context.
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Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings This link opens in a new windowThis database provides access to thousands of audio field recordings, interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, correspondence, and other resources from a variety of areas of study in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
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Jazz Music Library This link opens in a new windowJazz Music Library is the largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.
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Music Online: American Music This link opens in a new windowMusic Online: American Music is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
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Music Online: Contemporary World Music This link opens in a new windowMusic Online: 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.
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Music Online: Popular Music Library This link opens in a new windowMusic Online: Popular Music Library from Alexander Street contains a wide range of popular music from around the world, including hundreds of thousands of tracks from major genres in pop music, including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more.
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Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
6/30/25: Naxos is currently unavailable. We are working with the vendor to restore access. Naxos Music Library is the most comprehensive collection of classical music available online. It includes the complete Naxos, Marco Polo and Da Capo catalogues of over 170,000 tracks, including Classical music, Historical recordings, Jazz, World, Folk and Chinese music. Whilst listening, users can read notes on the works being played as well as biographical information on composers or artists in Naxos's extensive database.
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Smithsonian Global Sound This link opens in a new windowIncludes the published recordings owned by the non-profit Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and the archival audio collections of the legendary Folkways Records, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, Monitor, Paredon and other labels. Includes music recorded around the African continent for the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University and material collected on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies.
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Broadway HD This link opens in a new windowBroadwayHD collects recordings of theatre and film performances both historical and from the 21st century.
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Classical Music in Video This link opens in a new windowSearchable database for the study of classical music in streaming video format. At completion it will contain 1,000 hours of classical music performances and master classes captured on video--approximately 1,500 performances in all. The collection will contain performances of all forms of classical music, including major orchestral performances by leading orchestras, plus chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with master classes and interviews with master teachers from around the world. Coverage of musical time periods spans Medieval to the 21st century, and performances cover historical recordings from the 1950s up to the most current recordings today.
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Dance in Video: Volumes I, II & III This link opens in a new windowDance in Video contains dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance.
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Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new windowDigital Theatre Plus includes recordings of classic, contemporary and international live theatre performances, interviews exploring the dramatic, technical theatre-making process as well as experimental, post-dramatic and applied theatre, and essays, documentaries, lectures, and study guides covering theatre history, context, language analysis, encyclopedia entries, and practical techniques.
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Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition This link opens in a new windowEthnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition is a curriculum-aligned collection of videos and segments curated to support the teaching of introductory anthropology courses. Each video and segment within this collection are accompanied by a teaching guide providing background information, lesson plans, and class room exercises and activities. There are a variety of themes that are discussed including family and kinship, gender roles, cultural identity, belief systems and other topics centered around diversity, change, and culture.
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Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings This link opens in a new windowThis database provides access to thousands of audio field recordings, interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, correspondence, and other resources from a variety of areas of study in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
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Music Online: The Qwest TV Collection This link opens in a new windowMusic Online: The Qwest TV Collection preserves diverse live performances, covering the evolution of jazz and beyond — representing funk, soul, hip-hop, folk, indie, electronic, blues, and other eclectic world genres. Co-created by Quincy Jones & Reza Ackbaraly, this unique collection of highly curated 150 titles makes timeless concerts and global music accessible for research, teaching and learning.
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National Theatre Collection (Volumes I & II) This link opens in a new windowNational Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high-definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies. Through a collaboration with the U.K.'s National Theatre, the collections offer a range of digital performance resources never previously seen outside of the National Theatre’s archive.
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Opera in Video This link opens in a new windowThis searchable and browsable database contains five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries.
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Shakespeare's Globe on Screen (2008-2015) This link opens in a new windowA video archive of performances at the Globe Theatre reconstruction from 2008-2015 and 2016-2018.
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Theatre in Video This link opens in a new windowThis browsable and searchable database contains performances of the world's leading plays and film documentaries on the subject of theater in streaming video. Some plays presented in multiple productions exemplifying various interpretations of the text, and technical and cultural differences among the presentations. Stage work of directors and actors are cross-searchable and available for side-by-side comparison. Interviews with directors, designers, writers, and actors, along with excerpts of live performances, provide illustration of the development of texts and the productions.
Help Guides and Tutorials
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Creating Music Playlists: Using Naxos & Alexander StreetThis guide is for UIUC faculty, staff, and students and will walk you through how to create and edit shareable playlists for personal and class use through two of our major streaming platforms: Naxos Music Library & Alexander Street Press.
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Alexander Street Press Resource CenterLinks to guides, documentation, and video tutorials for navigating ASP platforms.
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Naxos Music Library TutorialsThe Naxos Music Library Tutorials are a valuable set of website walkthroughs that introduce you to the full functionality of the library.
Free Online Collections
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EVIA Digital ArchiveThe EVIA Digital Archive Project is a collaborative endeavor to create a digital archive of ethnographic field video for use by scholars and instructors. Funded since 2001 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with significant contributions from Indiana University and the University of Michigan, the Project has been developed through the joint efforts of ethnographic scholars, archivists, librarians, technologists, and legal experts. Beyond the primary mission of digitally preserving ethnographic field video, the EVIA Project has also invested significantly in the creation of software and systems for the annotation, discovery, playback, peer review, and scholarly publication of video and accompanying descriptions.
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Jacob's Pillow Dance InteractiveJacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive is an ever-growing collection of dance videos filmed at Jacob’s Pillow from the 1930s to today. Jacob’s Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and home to America’s longest running dance festival.
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National Film Board of CanadaDiscover the NFB’s rich online collection
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New York Public Library's Bhutan Dance ProjectThe Bhutan Dance Project Video Archive contains 652 videos that were collected and created by Core Culture.
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NumeridanseNumeridanse is a multimedia dance platform. It offers free access to a unique video base: filmed performances, documentaries, interviews, fictions, dance videos. Every single genre, style and form is showcased here: butoh, classical ballet, neo-classical ballet, baroque, Indian, African, flamenco, contemporary, traditional dances, hip-hop, tango, jazz, circus arts, performance, etc.
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OperaVisionOperaVision is a freeview opera streaming platform, supported by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. The place to see opera online, OperaVision is a window on the varied landscape of musical theatre for a connected world.
