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New York Philharmonic Launches Rebuild Of Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives
Posted June 16, 2026
New York Philharmonic Launches Rebuild of Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives
The New York Philharmonic announces the launch of a rebuild of the Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives.
The Digital Archives, the first online repository of musical and cultural history of its kind, was first introduced in 2011. Following a five-year project to digitally modernize this resource, the next generation of the Digital Arhichives—completed with the support of the Leon Levy Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities—shifts from the original, custombuild system to a modern, cloud-supported digital asset management system. The new features, which allow for greater customization of personal exploration, include:
- An integrated search across multiple document types, allowing researchers to explore concert programs, business records, marked scores and parts, images, and other archival materials together
- A simplified request process for downloading eligible Digital Archives materials, including public-domain scores and parts; official Philharmonic documents, such as business documents, press clippings, and programs; and radio features
- The establishment of user accounts to allow for the creation of personal research collections, adding collection descriptions, and managing download requests
- An enhanced Performance History search, with expanded filtering, improved discovery features, and downloadable performance reports
- Expanded access to mid-20th-century radio broadcast intermission features, including interviews with notable conductors, soloists, and composers as well as music-history travelogues
The newly added materials includes 552 marked scores and 4,728 marked parts—
the largest addition of such material to the Digital Archives since 2017. Highlights include:
- >Marked parts for Mahler's Symphony No. 5, frequently used since 1989, including in performances conducted by past Music Directors Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, and Alan Gilbert as well as incoming Tang Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel
- >Marked parts for Copland's Lincoln Portrait, used in performances conducted by Lukas Foss and narrated by the eminent contralto and civil rights activist Marian Anderson on the 1966 Concerts in the Parks, and on the Philharmonic's 1976 Bicentennial tour, conducted by Philharmonic Laureate Conductor Leonard Bernstein, featuring bass-baritone William Warfield
- >Parts for J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion used in 1962 performances conducted by Bernstein
- >Parts for Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite used in select concerts beginning in the 1980s
- >Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur's marked score of Beethoven's Missa solemnis that he prepared for the Boston Symphony Orchestra—the last score Masur worked on before his death in 2015
About the New York Philharmonic Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives
The New York Philharmonic Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives was launched in February 2011, and currently comprises more than four million pages, including more than 15,000 printed programs and 40,000 marked orchestral parts; all conducting scores marked by Leonard Bernstein (more than 750 titles), as well as printed music, business documents, and photographs including from the Orchestra's eras presided over by Gustav Mahler and Arturo Toscanini. Growing continually, the scope of the online collections is every document in the New York Philharmonic's Archives from 1842 through 1970, as well as all public documents through today (e.g., marketing materials, press releases, and annual reports). The archives supports a growing research community of almost 200,000 annual unique users from around the world.