This collection documents Milhaud’s career as a composer and faculty at Mills College. The collection includes articles and clippings, programs, correspondence, writings, photographs, newsletters, manuscript scores, books, published scores, recordings, autograph scores, audio, video, and memorabilia. In general, the collection does not contain Milhaud’s personal papers. The bulk of letters and manuscripts are retained by the Milhaud family.

Darius Milhaud was at Mills College from 1940–1946 and alternate years, 1946–1971. During those years, the Library began to collect his compositions, books by and about him, recordings of his works, memorabilia, etc. In the 1960s, Professor Margaret Lyon of the Music Department and Flora Elizabeth Reynolds, College Librarian, established the Darius Milhaud Collection. Materials were acquired by mean of gifts from the Milhaud family (manuscripts and scores) and other donors, and by purchase. By 1976, the Milhaud Archive was entered into The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections with 249 items (correspondence, notes, four original scores, photocopies of 35 scores, books, one film, and one taped conversation). A collection development policy was written in 1978. In 1984, an endowment fund for the establishment of the Darius Milhaud Collection of Mills College Archives was created. The goal of the fund was to “…ensure that the Collection be preserved in perpetuity” and to hire an archivist and purchase materials. The fund also made possible an annual concert to promote Milhaud’s work, especially to Mills students.

Consult repository.

Contact the Special Collections Curator, F. W. Olin Library, Mills College for copyright and permission to publish information.

Collection is open for research.