This aggregated database provides access to all of KU’s Alexander Street Press collections.  Video, audio, and text covering a wide variety of subject matters are included.  In addition to contemporary sources, this database contains significant amounts of primary sources. 

The Broadway on Demand Collection provides an extensive range of content that goes beyond live performances. Along with musicals, plays, and dance performances, the collection includes unique behind-the-scenes series, documentaries, and masterclasses to help researchers gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the art of theater. 

Cambridge Companions searches across the Companions for Literature and Classics; Philosophy, Religion, and Culture; and Music.

Cambridge Companions to Music provide information on composers, instruments or musical topics, written with the student, the performer and the music lover in mind. Each volume provides structured series of essays by leading authorities offering comprehensive coverage and reference material.

A streaming video database of theater productions, including Shakespeare, classics, musical theater, dance, opera, and recent British productions.

Digital Theatre Plus uses Single Sign On for both on and off campus users:

  • Click Sign in and enter your email address ending in 'ku.edu' then click Next.
  • Type in 'Kansas' or scroll down to find 'University of Kansas' then click the institution name.
  • Sign in with KU username and password.

Please download the latest version of Chrome before 6th December 2022 in order to continue using this browser to watch content on the platform.

DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) is a streaming audio database, based on the music available on the New World Records and CRI labels. Music available on other smaller, independent American labels are also available on DRAM.

Features thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study, including sites in West Africa, North America, South East Asia and more.

Offers the full texts of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), The Oxford companion to Music (2011), and The Oxford Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised 2006), as well as all subsequent updates. It includes 50,000 signed articles and 30,000 biographies. It is the most comprehensive source of information on all aspects of music in English.

Contains the texts of over 6000 opera arias and art songs rendered in the International Phonetic Alphabet notation.

A project to digitize public domain journals in the history of film, radio, and sound recordings covering the years 1903 to 1995.

Met Opera on Demand offers users instant access to more than 500 full-length Metropolitan Opera performances, including stunning HD videos from the Met's award-winning Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions, classic telecasts from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and hundreds of radio broadcasts dating back to 1935.  Please note this resource is not compatible with the iPad due to its use of Flash Player.  The iPad app does not allow one to access the resource through one's institutional subscription.  (Restricted to 5 simultaneous users.)

Indexes journal articles covering classical, popular, and world music.

Music Online: Classical Scores Library is a reliable and authoritative destination for in-copyright digital scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of diverse and lesser-known contemporary works.

Music Online: Listening provides streaming access to over 11 million audio tracks*, across all the key musical genres.  Includes Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound, a ten volume print set of encyclopedias, associated audio tracks, musical illustrations, photographs, drawings, song texts, score examples, charts, and maps.

Formerly known as International Index for Music Periodicals

Provides indexing and abstracting for international music journals from 20 countries, plus full-text from 140 of the indexed journals. 

Music Reference Collection brings together the most comprehensive written collection of materials for the study of music, covering virtually every musical time-period, genre, cultural group, and geographic region.  The collection contains a variety of essential music reference materials allowing users to chronicle the history of music of diverse origins and walks of life.  Includes access to Music Online: African American Music Reference, Music Online: Classical Music Reference Library, and Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.

Find songs according to multiple parameters, including voice type, character's age, tempo, composer, lyricist, and more.

A streaming audio source for classical music. It includes all the music issued on Naxos, Marco Polo, Da Capo, plus selections from 100+ other labels.  (Restricted to 10 simultaneous users.)

A streaming audio database which includes music from Naxos, Fantasy, Prestige, Pablo, and other labels.  (Restricted to 5 simultaneous users.)

A database of over 45,000 works for consultation or downloading. The FreeHand Solero viewer plug-in available at the site is required for transposing, listening, and optimized printing.   This software is installed on public computers in Gorton Music and Dance Library only.

Provides an extensive streaming video library of classical music performances, opera, ballet, live concerts and documentaries. (Restricted to 5 simultaneous users.)

Includes original manuscripts and first editions by prominent Orthodox composers.  Browse or search for composers, liturgical services, chants, and chorus types.

Oxford Music Online allows the simultaneous searching of The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition; The Oxford Dictionary of Music; and The Oxford Companion to Music.

Provides indexing, abstracts, and selected full-text from many sources, covering film, theater, dance, stagecraft, television, and more. Full-text ranges from 1864 to the present.

Recent Researches in Music Online provides access to titles published since 2018 in the seven Recent Researches in Music series: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, 19th/20th centuries, American (including MUSA), and Oral Traditions. Users can access the complete content of scores and partbooks.

An international, highly annotated database with detailed content analysis of writings on musical history and culture between 1800 and 1950 from over 140 periodicals.

Provides indexing and abstracts to articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, conference proceedings, discographies, dissertations, ethnographic recordings, Festschriften, films, iconographies, and videos covered by the Repertoire International de Literature Musicale.

RIPM Jazz Periodicals is comprised of 117 jazz journals published between 1920 and approximately the year 2000, primarily from the United States. Significant journals include, among others, Cadence, Mississippi Rag, and Record Changer.

Access the entire run of one of the most important magazines to cover music and popular culture. The archive provides issue browsing and keyword searching of all text including articles, photo captions, and advertisements.

A literary journal with writers from around the world founded by Victoria Ocampo in 1931. Contents include literature, film, theatre, art, music, history, and politics. The electronic version offers all pages and images of the 364 issues, including covers and advertisements.

Resource for trumpet related news, interviews, articles, as well as video reports and lessons.