ASRAL

This website is a beta version of a website that will contain an Internet sheet music library that is searched with a database, pages to browse sheet music, a quick reference guide to classical music research resources, and a blog.

The library contains a very specialized collection - just art songs, but art song is defined very loosely, as anything that can be performed in recital. This includes opera arias, concert arrangements of folk songs, historically significant salon songs, and even some duets and part-songs. The works included are all in the public domain and are mostly out-of-print. They are available for free downloading in the "Browse" section of the website.

The database will be searchable by many fields useful to those looking for art songs, including most of the standard fields (composer, poet, title, publisher, year of publication, etc.), as well as some that are usually only used in repertoire guidebooks (such as Sergius Kagen's Music for the Voice), like key, range, tessitura, recommended voice type, and language. There are also a few additional searchable fields that could be of use for recital programming: composer's nationality, poet's nationality, general tempo information, instruments, style, and number of singers.

A blog to share more in-depth information on different composers is planned.

This will all take some time - thank you for your patience and interest in ASRAL.

The website is created and maintained by Mary Freeman, who holds a Bachelors degree in Voice Performance from Northwestern University, a Masters in Applied Vocal Pedagogy from Northeastern Illinois University, and a Masters degree in Library and Information Science at Drexel University, in addition to substantial computer science coursework. She has studied voice with Janice Pantazelos, Kathleen Kaun, Ronald Combs, and Joyce Hope Suskind (in chronological order). She currently volunteers at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division, and at All Angels Church in Manhattan, working on a music digitization project. She has worked for New York Festival of Song, and was on the Advisory Board of New Music for Young Ensembles.