In February 2025, the self-proclaimed “America’s oldest college DJ” passed away and left behind his vast trove of records. However, few outside the world of New York metro area Classical radio listeners or networks of Bach scholars might have received the news of his death. Being a member of neither, it was not until late September 2025, when I received a call from a lawyer handling the estate of Teri Noel Towe, that I learned of the man and the unbelievable collection that he had amassed during his life.
Jeri Hollinger, the lawyer and former colleague of Towe, informed me that Towe had listed the Aaron Copland School of Music (ACSM) as the first-choice destination for his extensive “gramophonic” collection upon his death. Hollinger passed along the relevant sections of Towe’s will and said that discussions had been held around 2011 with the ACSM while Towe was still alive to negotiate a gift deal, but nothing ever came of those talks. Neither of us could determine what connection, if any, that Towe may have had to 춹Ƶ (he was a Princeton and U. of Virginia alum), but regardless we agreed that if he had wanted QC to have his collection then we’d do our best.*
Over his decades as a DJ and amateur musicologist—which is not to denigrate his knowledge, but rather point out that he practiced law professionally—Towe collected “thousands of records,” in Hollinger’s words, which largely focused on J.S. Bach, W.F. Händel, and other figures of Baroque music, as well as organ compositions. Unfortunately, there was no inventory list and Hollinger mentioned that Towe “was a bit of a hoarder,” so the collection would need to be visited in person. A trip to meet Hollinger at the Towe house in rural Amenia, NY, was scheduled for late October 2025 so that I could survey the collection.
Even having been warned beforehand, the state of the modest hillside house surprised me. The only aspect of the place that seemed to be in any order was the record collection, which largely occupied a sunlit addition to the house. Boxes upon boxes of 78s were stacked in a large recessed area, while boxes of LPs filled most of the walkable areas between several rough-built wooden shelf units. I had not allotted nearly enough time to assess what was present, so I scanned the more accessible sets of shelving and filled two large boxes with the LPs that immediately caught my attention. I then made tentative plans for a follow-up visit where I could spend more time among the shelves and boxes to make further selections.
Before my second visit I conducted some more cursory research on Towe and his life’s work. By one estimate the full Towe collection contains up to 15,000 records, including hundreds, if not thousands, of 78s (which the QC Music Library does not have the ability to play and cannot accept for gift/donation). It is thought that he maintained the world’s most complete collection of Bach’s recordings. Unfortunately, a thorough examination of all the Towe holdings would have taken weeks, at minimum, and it was not possible to take more than a fraction of Towe’s LPs back to the Music Library. Given these circumstances, I focused on LPs that appeared to be in [superficially] good condition, featured noteworthy performers, or displayed other characteristics that marked them as having potential interest to library users. I loaded several more bins of LPs into my hatchback and returned to Queens.
Back at the Music Library, I spent some time looking through the boxes and sorting accessionable items from those better suited to our biannual book sale (we sell donated books, scores, LPs, and CDs that we can’t add to the collection to raise extra library funds). I developed a processing plan by which the staff—Anna Sokol, Amerigo Cleffi, Daniel Stimpfle, and Myra Campolo—would help me with item identification, inventory, and accession into our collection. Over the last six months or so we have slowly made our way through the items that I retrieved from the Amenia house. Accession of most items was reasonably straightforward, as matching bib records could be found in OCLC. However, approximately 5% of the items lacked a relevant bib record, which gave me the opportunity to put into action what I learned from the ALA’s Fundamentals of Music Cataloging e-course I took earlier this year and create some new records from scratch. In addition to giving the three members of the staff who are graduate students in 춹Ƶ’s School of Information Studies (QCSIS) valuable experience in collection processing, they also got to see some concrete examples of cataloging in action.
Towe Archive of Classical Music Collection
With the processing of the Kenneth C. & Betty M. Towe Archive of Classical Music now complete, the staff and I are creating a few exhibit displays to showcase the new acquisitions and hopefully draw in more patrons to engage with our LP collection. One exhibit will feature some rare items of which QC may have the only institutionally held copies. In addition to significant recordings of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven works, the collection features many pieces by Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Schubert, and Stravinsky. There are also a number of historical performances by Pablo Casals and Wanda Landowska, some rare Japanese and European import pressings, and a couple handfuls of jazz albums. As of this writing, the status of several thousand LPs and 78s from Teri Towe’s collection remains in limbo. While the estate executors aim to keep the rest of the materials together, the likelihood of a single institution being able to do so seems low. If the opportunity arose to acquire an additional portion of the collection, I would take it and I have left myself some space here to do so. In the meantime we have nearly 300 new albums available to our users for listening pleasure, liner note research, or whatever else they may think up.
Additional information about Teri Noel Towe:
* 9/8/26 Update: Thanks to some sleuthing by Nick Normal, Head of the Makerspace, we now know that Teri Towe had been friends with 춹Ƶ professor emeritus of music Joseph Machlis (1906-1998) and in March 2001 gave a lecture at QC on the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment of J.S. Bach. Some info on this lecture is available on the archived copy of Towe’s old .