ITMA & New European Sound‑Recordings Project

The Irish Traditional Music Archive is delighted to have become this year a partner in Europeana Sounds, a project of a Europe-wide consortium of libraries and archives which will make over 1,000,000 sound recordings and sound-related objects of European heritage freely available online. The recordings will range from classical and traditional music to environmental sounds and oral histories. This €6.14-million project will run for three years, 2014–2016. It is co-funded by the European Commission and co-ordinated by the British Library.   

Europeana Sounds
As a Content Provider to the consortium, ITMA will be contributing digitised sound recordings of Irish traditional music, along with other sound-related materials such as videos, sheet music, and catalogue information. This content will be made available on the existing Europeana portal site, to which ITMA has already contributed some 2,000 items since 2011 (available here).
 
The 24 partners in the consortium include national libraries, sound institutions, research centres, and universities from 12 European countries, stretching from Latvia to Portugal and also including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The other Irish partner is Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. 
 
The official press release for Europeana Sounds is available here, with a translation into Irish by ITMA available here. A website for the project is being designed by the Europeana Sounds team and will be available mid-year.