Music for Everyone’s Ears

It’s one of the world’s biggest and oldest libraries and it’s right here in Rome. The Vatican Library, founded in the fourth century, today contains more than 1.1 million printed books and 75,000 manuscripts. Among the manuscripts are musical scores by some of the world’s finest composers.

Now, a Yale University professor is on a treasure hunt for some of those musical masterpieces - many of which haven’t been taken out and listened to for centuries. Toshiyuki Shimada is the former conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and music director of Trinity Music Partners. The Portland-based company has signed a licensing agreement with the Vatican Library to rediscover some of these works and make them available to music lovers the world over. Shimada talked to Tracey McClure...