Richard and Judith Mintel Archive of Recordings

The Richard and Judith Mintel Archive of Recordings comprises 6 boxes and spans over 4 decades of sound engineering and producing work of husband and wife team Richard and Judith Mintel.

Most recordings in this collection were made before a live audience, and for the most part, only two microphones were used as a way to simulate a live listening experience. Annotations on the type and placement of microphones are included on some of the program notes in the collection. The Mintels' recording process started with recordings made in rehearsal, which were reviewed with the conductor or director, then recordings in performance with any necessary adjustments. After this, the recording would be reviewed with the entire performing ensemble to adjust for subsequent performances. The Mintels also valued and took into account the particular acoustics of each performance space.

A variety of equipment was used to make these recordings, beginning with reel-to-reel tape in the 1970s, moving to a Beta video cassette recorder with Sony PCM-F1 adaptor, then to DAT, and finally to CD and .wav files. All materials in this collection were either originally recorded as .wav files or have been transferred to this format from the originals.

Recordings are almost entirely of classical music performances, except for a few introductions and radio broadcast material. Chicago's Music of the Baroque ensemble is most heavily represented on the recordings, and due to the Baroque specialty of this group, musical pieces are mostly from this era. Overall, however, pieces span a range of eras from Gregorian chant to the 20th century.

Each folder contains one or more CDs from one or more performances and printed materials such as program notes, newspaper reviews, or liner notes from commercial recordings. Pieces included on CDs are listed in a Scope and Contents note for each file. Note that programs included in folders do not necessarily reflect the exact performances recorded on the accompanying CDs. Dates given for each file reflect any dates present on CDs or printed material.

The first three series are recordings from three seasons of Chicago classical music radio station WFMT broadcasts (1986-1989) of Music of the Baroque concerts, led by Thomas Wikman.

The majority of recordings in the other five series are also of Music of the Baroque's concerts, led by Thomas Wikman from the group's inception to 2001. Other groups and recordings included here are primarily from the Chicago area, such as the New Oratorio Singers and Church of the Ascension Choir, with some exceptions such as the Grand Teton Music Festival and Boston-area organ recitals.

One folder after series 1-8 holds Judith Mintel's hard drive. The hard drive holds digital versions of all printed and digitally produced material in the collection.