In 1998 the Washington Men's Camerata, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, established a National Library of Men's Choral Music in Washington, DC. This effort, entitled the Demetrius Project named after the founder and the first chief librarian of the Royal Library at Alexandria, continues to receive NEA support and has grown to include over 3,333 titles and approximately 199,000 individual copies of music.
The goals of the library are to preserve the men's choral collections from universities that no longer have men's choruses in addition to donations from other men's choruses, and to operate as a lending library. In so doing, the library plays a leading role in preserving the tradition of men's choral music.
The holdings of the library come from 18 universities including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Temple, Colgate, Davidson, Georgetown, Lafayette, Pomona, SUNY at Albany, and Michigan as well as U.S. Army Chorus, Measure for Measure, the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington and the University Glee Club of Philadelphia. Contained in the collection are many “hidden treasures,” including original works and arrangements for men's chorus by Charles Ives, Marshall Bartholomew, Fenno Heath, Darius Milhaud and other American composers and choral conductors.
You can search the Library's online database by clicking the button below.
To inquire as to the availability of any particular work, fill out our online Borrowing Agreement form. For more information or to support the Camerata's Men's Choral Library project, please email managingdirector@camerata.com or call (202) 364-1064.
An ongoing series of recordings helps to preserve and promote the various “classics” that comprise The Demetrius Project. Brothers Sing On! Classics for Men's Chorus (Gothic, March 2006) was the first recording from the Library and has already been featured several times on National Public Radio and classical music stations around the country. The second recording, When I Was a Young Man: More Classics for Men's Chorus, was released by Gothic in 2009.
You can support The Demetrius Project with a tax-deductible donation to the Camerata by clicking here.