The collection is arranged into five series: biographical materials, pedagogical materials, correspondence and notes, audio materials, and miscellany. The range of materials are from 1955 to 1988, with the bulk of the materials in the late 50s to the late 70s. There is a series of "Bio-Bibliography Annual Supplement" forms from 1955 to 1972, chronicling his compositional output and administrative involvement during those years. The pedagogical materials include mostly class assignments from his years of teaching, arranged by class numbers and years. There is also a body of materials that students and others have sent to him, apparently for evaluation.

Andrew Welsh Imbrie (b. New York, April 6, 1921). Composer. He began piano studies at the age of four with Ann Abajian, and continued with Pauline and Leo Ornstein. At Princeton (BA 1942), he studied composition with Roger Sessions. After serving in the U.S. Army (1942-6), he followed Sessions to Berkeley, where he received an M.A. in 1947 and the same year was appointed an instructor. He postponed his teaching career to accept a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (1947-9), to which he later returned as composer-in-residence. At Berkeley, Imbrie was rapidly promoted, becoming professor of music in 1960, and in the course of his long association with the University he has acquired the reputation of a distinguished teacher; his pupils have included Larry Austin and David Del Tredici. In 1970 he was also named chairman of the composition department at the San Francisco Conservatory, and in 1982 Jacob Ziskind Visiting Professor of Music at Brandeis University. He has contributed articles to Perspectives of New Musicand other periodicals. Imbrie has received many awards, including the Alice M. Ditson Fellowship (1946-7), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1953-4, and 1960-61), a Brandeis University Creative Arts Award (1958), and a Naumburg Recording Award (1960). In 1969 he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and in 1980 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received commissions from the Naumburg Foundation (for Three Campion Songs), California State University, Hayward (A Song for St. Cecilia Day), the San Francisco Opera (Angle of Repose)and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Requiem: In Memoriam John H. Imbrie 1962-1981). [From The New Grove Dictionary of American Music].

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of the Music Library.

Collection is open for research.