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Lillie Rovno was deployed by the United States military in Germany, Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii, and continued to travel the world in later years. A scholar of Russian culture interested in performance arts, Rovno collected materials on a broad array of art forms: Kabuki and Japanese visual arts, ballet, Jewish music, and Italian music. The collection includes numerous photos, some autographed, of prominent ballet performers from the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and the U.S., with many of the photos documenting visits of Soviet ballet companies to the U.S. in the 1980s and early 1990s. The collection also contains musical scores from Italy, the U.S., and Israel, including Israeli songbooks from the early 1950s.

Belmont (1878-1979) was an American actress and a prominent public figure. The collection includes correspondence, subject files, and personal materials.

Jack Beeson (1921-2010) was a noted twentieth-century American composer, professor of composition, and the chair of the Columbia University Department of Music from 1968 to 1972. The collection includes scores, correspondence, subject files, scrapbooks, datebooks, drafts of written works, biographical materials, programs, and audio and audiovisual recordings.

New York City Opera (NYCO) was famously dubbed "The People's Opera" by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at its founding in 1943. The Opera company's mission is to inspire audiences with innovative and theatrically compelling opera at an affordable price. This collection documents the artistic productions and the daily administrative functions and operations attest to the mission of the company. The materials in this collection consist of administrative and financial records, production files, stage guides, scores, correspondence, programs, photographs, posters, scenery plans, memorabilia, printed materials, and audio and video recordings, dating from 1924 to 2019, with its bulk dating from 1965 to 1991.

The original scores, clippings, correspondence and ephemera in this collection document the lives and careers of Harry Lawrence, Carlotta, and Valdo Freeman, a family of African-American performing artists involved in opera, theatre, and music in early-twentieth-century New York.