Herman Berlinski (1910-2001) was a German-born Jewish American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist, and choir conductor. He was born to Polish Jewish parents in Leipzig, Germany, on August 18, 1910. Berlinski studied music at the Landeskonsevatorium Leipzig and graduated in 1932. With the rise of the Nazi regime he fled to Paris, where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Alfred Cortot. Berlinski served in the French army, then immigrated to the United States in 1941 and settled in New York City. The collection represents Berlinski's contributions to Jewish contemporary classical music. It includes manuscript and photocopied scores of his orchestral and vocal compositions, including that of his quintet for clarinet and strings, the last piece he completed before his death in 2001. It includes a substantial number of recordings of his recitals and concerts, concerts he conducted, and commercial LPs, correspondence, business papers, and subject files.

Leonard Bernstein was a Jewish American composer, conductor, writer, lecturer, and pianist. The collection contains correspondence, photographs, writings, personal business papers, the archives from his corporate identity, Amberson Inc., scrapbooks, clippings and press materials, programs, datebooks and schedules, iconography, address books, and fan mail. In addition, it contains music manuscripts for many of his compositions, including The Age of Anxiety (Symphony no. 2); Candide; Chichester Psalms; Fancy Free; Jeremiah (Symphony no. 1); On the Waterfront; Prelude, Fugue and Riffs; Serenade after Plato's "Symposium"; Trouble in Tahiti; West Side Story; and Wonderful Town.

Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born Jewish American composer, violinist, conductor, and photographer. The collection, which documents his life and work, includes manuscripts (music and lecture material), correspondence, business and financial papers, photographs, programs, promotional material, clippings, writings about Ernest Bloch, personal papers, and printed matter.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian-born Jewish American composer. The collection, which consists of materials related to his professional and personal activities, includes holograph music manuscripts, printed scores, libretti, writings, correspondence, business papers, photographs, programs, and clippings.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was a Jewish American composer and conductor. The Aaron Copland Collection consists of published and unpublished music by Copland and other composers, correspondence, writings, biographical material, datebooks, journals, professional papers including legal and financial material, photographs, awards, art work, and books. Of particular interest is the correspondence with Nadia Boulanger, which extent over 50 years, and with his long-time friend, Harold Clurman. Other significant correspondents are Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, Carlos Chávez, David Diamond, Roy Harris, Charles Ives, Claire Reis, Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, and Virgil Thomson. The photographic collection of Copland's friend and confidant Victor Kraft, a professional photographer, forms part of the collection.

Mario Davidovsky was an Argentine-born Jewish American composer, teacher, and pioneer in the field of electro-acoustic music. The collection contains music by Davidovsky and other composers, project and business files, correspondence, teaching materials, biographical information, photographs, clippings, promotional materials, and files related to Composers Conference.

David Leo Diamond (b. July 9, 1915, in Rochester, N.Y. - d. June 13, 2005, in Rochester, N.Y.) was an award-winning Jewish American composer and prominent symphonist of the mid-twentieth century. A former student of Roger Sessions and Nadia Boulanger, Diamond ultimately composed eleven symphonies and countless other chamber and vocal works. The collection includes music manuscripts, correspondence, writings, photographs, financial and legal documents, and other materials that document his private and professional life.

The collection comprises practically all the Russian-born Jewish Argentine composer's works, mainly holograph manuscript scores in all major categories of composition. It also includes documents, correspondence, writings, programs, and scrapbooks. It also includes documents; correspondence, writings, programs, and scrapbooks.

Irving Fine was a Jewish American conductor, teacher, and composer whose works assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. The bulk of the materials in the collection are musical scores and sketches which represent nearly his entire musical output. In addition, there are photographs, clippings, programs, and scrapbooks, as well as correspondence from twentieth-century musicians.

Lukas Foss was a Jewish American composer, conductor, pianist, and educator. The collection, which documents his life and career, consists of music holograph manuscript scores and parts, sketches, correspondence, business papers, programs, clippings, promotional materials, contracts, and financial documents.

Composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) and his lyricist brother Ira (1896-1983) wrote some of the most significant American popular songs of the first half of the twentieth century. Working with novelist and poet DuBose Heyward, they created the great American opera Porgy and Bess. Additionally, George Gershwin composed several singularly American concert works, including An American in Paris and Rhapsody In Blue, and both brothers produced many distinguished songs working with other collaborators. The George and Ira Gershwin Collection contains music manuscripts, handwritten and typewritten lyric sheets, printed music, correspondence, photographs, programs and publicity materials, legal and financial documents, and thirty-one scrapbooks, which present nearly a complete record of the Gershwins' lives and work as they were chronicled in the contemporary press.

Jack Gottlieb (October 12, 1930, New Rochelle, N.Y. - Feb. 23, 2011, New York, N.Y.) was a Jewish American composer, author, and lecturer. He was an authority on the influence of Jewish popular, folk, theatrical, and liturgical music traditions on American popular music. The collection documents Gottlieb's life and career, and his relationship to Leonard Bernstein, through music scores, correspondence, files, photographs, writings, bound volumes, electronic files, audio/visual materials, scrapbooks, scripts, promotional material, and realia.

Danny Kaye (1911-1987), born David Daniel Kaminsky, was a Jewish American actor, singer, dancer, comedian, and humanitarian. His wife, Sylvia Fine (1913-1991), was a Jewish American lyricist, composer, writer, lecturer, and producer. The collection, which documents their lives and careers, contains printed and manuscript music, scripts, correspondence, business and financial papers, promotional and publicity materials, speeches, oral history transcripts, photographs, scrapbooks, programs, posters, honors, and realia.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was a composer and pianist noted for his orchestral works, operas, concertos, film scores, piano music, and chamber music. A musical prodigy, he famously displayed immense talent for both performance and composition. Korngold and his family were part of the exodus of Jewish European artists who moved to the United States during the rise of Nazism in Europe. He lived and worked in Hollywood, California, until his death in 1957. The Erich Wolfgang Korngold Collection consists primarily of holograph and copyist music manuscripts that span his entire compositional output, as well as sketches, fragments, libretti, and film cue sheets. Many works not in Korngold's hand include his annotations. The collection also contains non-music materials such as correspondence, financial papers, photographs, and programs.

Meyer Kupferman (b. July 3, 1926, in New York; d. Nov. 26, 2003, near Rhinebeck, N.Y.) was a Jewish American composer and clarinetist. The collection contains music manuscript and printed scores and sketches.