Streaming Audio

Naxos Music Library is a large online classical music library. Currently, it offers streaming access to more than 26,180 CDs with more than 374,200 tracks. On average, 500 new CDs are added to the library every month.

The library offers the catalogs of more than 50 classical, jazz and world music labels with more labels joining every month. Among the labels whose catalogs are included are classical labels such as BIS, Chandos, CPO, Haenssler, Hungaroton, Marco Polo, Vanguard Classics, VOX, and of course Naxos. World music content is provided by ARC, Celestial Harmonies and others; and there is also jazz, film music, nostalgia, classic and contemporary rock content.

Resources offered by Naxos include synopses of over 700 operas, a pronunciation guide for composer and artist names and a glossary of musical terms. A comprehensive online encyclopedia of classical music is in development.

In addition to allowing subscribers to listen to recordings Naxos provides playing times of individual works or movements, detailed music notes, and opera libretti.

DRAM is a resource providing on-demand streaming access to CD-quality audio (192kbps Mp4), complete original liner notes and essays from independent record labels and sound archives.

Currently DRAM's collection contains nearly 2,000 albums (15,000 compositions) worth of recordings from a distinctive set of 15 independent labels, and we are continually working to add more content. The basis for the current collection is the diverse catalogue of American music recordings by New World Records. (Covering folk to opera, Native American to jazz, 19th century classical to early rock, musical theater, contemporary, electronic and beyond.)

DRAM also includes music from other sources, including the CRI, Albany, innova, Cedille, XI, Pogus, Deep Listening and Mutable Music labels.

The World Music Collection includes books on and sound recordings of traditional and popular musics from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North, South and Central Americas; and Oceania. For more sources, please consult the online catalog.

The materials are grouped by geographical region, and maps are color-coded according to the number of available resources for a particular country. If an item should be categorized under multiple countries, then it is listed under each. Twenty-second audio excerpts are included for all recordings, and each country links to its corresponding article in Grove Music Online (this feature is only available to USC faculty and students). Local call numbers are provided for each item.

This website, based on a similar resource developed by Dr. Gary Boye at Appalachian State University’s Music Library, was initially created by Adam Shambaugh in 2004. This is an ongoing project. New resources will be identified and added to the appropriate page as they are acquired.