Carnegie Hall preserves its historic collections

Carnegie Hall's Archives team is in the midst of a major project to digitize the Hall's extensive collections.

The first televised event at Carnegie Hall took place on December 10, 1949, when United Nations Human Rights Day was celebrated with an all-star line-up that included Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Laurence Olivier, Yehudi Menuhin, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Carnegie Hall's Archives owns a copy of the event program, as well as a rare group photograph of the previously mentioned foursome backstage. But to date, a copy of the televised event has not been found, if it even still exists.

Carnegie Hall, located in Manhattan in New York City, USA, will soon be reformatting most of its existing audiovisual holdings under its Digital Archives Project. Priority is being given to the oldest and most at-risk formats, such as 16" lacquer disks and acetate films from the 1950s. By next year's World Day of Audiovisual Heritage, they hope to share samples of some of the content online.

Read the full blog post at:
http://www.carnegiehall.org/BlogPost.aspx?id=4294990213