The contributions of the Melbourne Festival of Organ and Harpsichord and its successors: 1971-2010

The Melbourne Festival of Organ and Harpsichord ran from 1971- 2010 under different names. It involved nearly 40 years of concerts and several hundred associated events, and had almost faded from view. An extensive range of original and previously unavailable performances have been identified, several hundred original recordings located, and the details of >1000 performers assembled. The culture that allowed this professional yet volunteer-run Festival to survive so long and contribute so much is explored. Intellectual Property barriers hindering access to this assembly of music are considered and recommendations made to enhance storage, discovery and access to this material and recover the ~400 magnetic tapes into a suitable digital format with the necessary extended metadata to enable this to occur.