The Music Library of Japan Choral Association is a specialized library for choral music, including a digital library. It was established in 1979 with the aim of collecting a broad range of choral sheet music, books, and recorded material (CDs, cassette tapes, and LP records) from Japan and overseas, and promoting choral music through collection-based research and educational/public awareness activities.
The library’s LP record digitization project “The Choral Music LP Records Digital Library – World Sounds in the Twentieth Century” involves the digitally-converted sound source data of 60 records selected by choir conductor MATSUBARA Chifuru stored in a special archive together with information such as song titles, composers, performers, publishers, catalogue number, etc. The data has been made available to the public for searching and listening to (inside the museum).
In addition to preserving records of notable performances, this initiative conveys the uniqueness of the project objectives as well as the unparalleled characteristics of the LP record as a music medium, such as size and first-rate Japanese language explanations, providing an “encounter with music” aimed at encouraging new artistic creation.

Archive available: July 17 – December 25, 2024

As a related event, we are streaming a three-part video lecture/talk “Questions raised/thoughts prompted by 20th century LP records”
by The Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo’s conductor MATSUBARA from October 8. The stream is hosted by vocalist/choral conductor TANIMOTO Yoshiki.

Video details
1. Music from the age of Albrecht Dürer
2. Music as urban culture
3. Gregorian Chant LP records

In addition, a dedicated Pinterest board “Room45°” has been set up as an introduction of LP records in the collection (given by choral conductor YANAGISIMA Kota). The project also introduces vinyl culture in Japan and overseas through a range of activities related to LP records in Japanese music libraries and public libraries belonging to the Music Library Association of Japan.