The Music of African Countries Reference Tapes subseries consists of 640 tape recordings that date from 1958 to the early 2000s. The tapes represent the working library established by Sarkisian at the VOA for production of the MTIA show. The tapes include recordings of festivals and other performances of heritage music with a large part being duplicates of commercial content compiled from varied sources including contributions from radio stations around the African continent. The collection reflects Sarkisian's work process which included re-formatting media to open-reel tape for use in the production of the MTIA radio shows. The subseries is organized alphabetically by country, language, or ethnic group and thereunder by tape name.
The inventory list may be searched by a range of keywords chosen to represent themes or "clusters" of tapes in the collection. Keywords include a language or ethnic group, and a set of terms selected by archivists to tag the recordings. Those terms are: commercial, fan, field, folk, interview, opera, pop, radio, and ripped. The range of content includes "dubbed" or ripped copies of commercial LP and 45 rpm recordings, Leo Sarkisian's original field recordings of African music, recordings of interviews, tapes of original music contributed by African radio stations, and tapes sent to the VOA by listeners. In some cases, photocopies of letters received with individual recordings remain taped to the box. Additionally, the Sarkisian VOA Library tape series includes tapes related to side projects by Sarkisian and a small number of recordings of events, lectures, and press conferences. The recorded interviews and lectures include a variety of hosts and interviewees, including composers, performing artists, and ethnomusicologists. Also included are tapes of Sarkisian's own lectures and soundtracks he created for exhibits of his paintings. Evidence of other recording projects include compilations of his original field recordings that he had hoped to release in LP disc format. Inventory lists provide detailed descriptions of items in this subseries.
