The Olga Iglesias Collection
A soprano's personal archive, open to the world at the Digital Library of the Caribbean.
An archive kept for half a century
For decades, Olga Iglesias's personal archive lived in family boxes and albums. Letters, telegrams, concert programs, photographs, recordings, and clippings documenting one of the most remarkable careers in Puerto Rican classical music. Since 2020, the Olga Iglesias Project has been digitizing that archive piece by piece and placing it online, freely accessible, for students, researchers, and anyone curious.
What the collection holds
The digitized collection grows month by month. A sample of what it holds, among much more.
Correspondence
Letters, telegrams, and postcards among Olga, Pablo Casals, Alexander Schneider, Marta Casals Istomin, her colleagues, and her family.
Programs and documents
From the 1958 Puerto Rico Symphony debut to the world tour of "El Pessebre", through San Francisco, Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, and Athens, alongside the contracts that show the craft behind a concert career.
Photographs and clippings
Never-before-seen photographs alongside press clippings, from WAPA television, the Conservatory, and stages on three continents.
Audio and videos
Period sound recordings and videos, digitized from their original formats.
Why the Digital Library of the Caribbean
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) was born in San Juan. It was founded here in July 2004, when librarians, archivists, and researchers from across the region agreed to build a cooperative digital library for the Caribbean. Today it brings together more than sixty institutions, from the national archives of Haiti to the National Library of Jamaica, with millions of pages, free to read and searchable in full text. The University of Florida sustains its infrastructure; Florida International University leads its outreach.
The Olga Iglesias Project is a contributing partner of dLOC. The collection lives there alongside the great archives of the Caribbean, with the long-term preservation this heritage deserves, in a library born in the same city where Olga sang with Casals.
A living archive
The digitization continues, and the world is finding it. New pieces are added regularly, and views have multiplied year over year, from the first few dozen in 2024 to thousands every month in 2026. A complete archival catalog of the collection is coming soon, with professional descriptions of every series and item.
View statistics are public on the collection's page at dLOC (opens in a new tab).
This work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which supported the first comprehensive assessment of the collection, and by the Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades, which funded a humanist-in-residence dedicated to its study.
The Project is also a member of the Society of American Archivists, North America's oldest and largest professional association of archivists.
Do you have materials?
Do you keep programs, photographs, recordings, or letters from Olga Iglesias's era, the Casals Festival, or mid-century Puerto Rican musical life? We would love to see them. We can digitize them, document them, and, if you wish, add them to the collection credited to your family. The originals always stay with you, unless you decide otherwise.