This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1948.
Specific locations
1948 in British music
1948 in Norwegian music
Specific genres
1948 in country music
1948 in jazz
Events
January 10 – The Amadeus Quartet gives its first recital under this name, at the Wigmore Hall in London. February 25 – First Nice Jazz Festival with Louis Armstrong, Stéphane Grappelli, Claude Luter, Mezz Mezzrow and Django Reinhardt. It is during this first edition that Suzy Delair sings for the first time the song "C'est si bon" to a cabaret where Louis Armstrong ended his evening. March 20 – Renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini makes his television debut, conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the United States in a program featuring the works of Richard Wagner. April 3 – Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 is played on television in its entirety for the first time in a concert featuring Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The chorus was prepared by Robert Shaw. April 21 – National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain gives its first concert. May 20 – The Second International Congress of Composers and Music Critics 1948 opens in Prague. June 5 – Opening of the first Aldeburgh Festival, founded by Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears. Summer – John Cage begins teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. June 21 – Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. November 29 – First live telecast of a complete opera by the Metropolitan Opera, of the opening-night performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello, starring Ramón Vinay, Licia Albanese, and Leonard Warren, on ABC-TV December – Perry Como has his first television Christmas Special. Hans Werner Henze becomes musical assistant at the Deutscher Theater in Konstanz. Al Jolson is voted the "Most Popular Male Vocalist" of the year by a Variety poll. Patti Page becomes the first artist to use the technique of multi-track overdubbing (later popularized by Les Paul & Mary Ford). Columbia Records introduces the rpm LP ("long playing") record at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, featuring 25 minutes of music per side, compared to the four minutes per side of the 78 rpm record, the previous standard for gramophone records. Otis Rush moves to Chicago and begins his musical career. Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft meet for the first time. Quartetto Cetra dubs the choruses for the Italian release of Disney's Dumbo. Gabriel von Wayditch begins work on his last opera The Heretics, which is still not completed when he dies in 1969. However, he completed the piano score of the massive 8.5 hour work, which is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest opera. Bruno Maderna meets Hermann Scherchen for the first time: a fundamental encounter. John Serry Sr. meets his mentor, the composer Robert Strassburg for the first time.
Albums released
The Jolson Album Vol. 2 – Al Jolson
Christmas Songs by Sinatra – Frank Sinatra
Selections from Road to Rio – Bing Crosby, Andrews Sisters
Concierto de Aranjuez — Regino Sainz de la Maza and the Orquesta Nacional de España
Top popular records
The following songs appeared in The Billboard's 'Best Selling Retail Records', 'Records Most-Played On the Air' and 'Most Played Juke Box Records' charts, starting November 1947 and before December 1948. Each week fifteen points were awarded to the number one record, then nine points for number two, eight points for number three, and so on. This system rewards songs that reach the highest positions, as well as those that had the longest chart runs. The total of a song's complete chart run is determined (never cutoff at the end of December, as in The Billboard's year-end lists), then the three Popular charts are combined, with that number determining a record's year-end rank. Regional charts determine the 11-25 rankings each week, and records that failed to score on the main chart were ranked by highest position. If a record only scored on one or two of the popular charts, it will obviously rank lower than a national hit on radios and juke boxes. Additional information from other sources is reported, but not used for ranking. This includes dates obtained from the "Discography of American Historical Recordings" website, chart performance from 'Most Played Juke Box Race Records', 'Most Played Juke Box Folk (Hillbilly) Records', 'Cashbox', and other sources as noted.