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Music in Australia

This guide will point you to resources in Australian music at the University of Melbourne Library and beyond.

About The Australian Musical News (1911 - 1963)

The Australian Musical News is a monthly magazine published by Allans, Melbourne, for Australian Musical News Publishing Company as a news-pictorial digest for Australian musicians and music-lovers. Its various titles included

  • Australian Music and Dramatic News (1913-1914),

  • Australian Musical News and Musical Digest (1940-1959),

  • Music and Dance (1959-1963)

  • Theatrical and Dramatic News

A volume numbering error occurred March 1944 - September 1945 and was corrected for the October 1945 issue (vol. XXXVI)


Search the Australian Musical News

The online issues of the Australian Musical News can be searched in a number of ways:

  • You can browse by year and then by issue
  • You can search the Digitised Collections by keyword
  • Once you open a PDF, you can search the full text by using the Find function (Ctrl F or Command F)

To search the Digitised Collections by keyword, click on the Search button in the top corner.

To isolate your search results to Australian Musical News, you can include that in your search terms, for example:

Screenshot showing example search terms for Australian Musical News. Example is "marshall-hall" AND "Australian Musical News"


Access The Australian Musical News

The Australian Musical News is available online.

To find it from the Library Homepage, select More... > Digitised Collections > Special Collections > Rare Music Collection > The Australian Musical News, 1911-1963.

Image showing how to access Australian Musical News.

You can browse issues by year and then search for keywords within that year.

Screenshot showing how to browse issues by year.

You'll need to login to access or download the PDF files.

Screenshot showing Login button for Australian Musical News.