Private Performances include interviews, recording sessions, rehearsals and demos with both recording veterans and musicians just beginning their careers. Several of the artists recorded (Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll, Jack Coen, Donny Golden, Michael Flatley, Joe Heaney, Mick Moloney, Martin Mulvihill, Joe Shannon) were subsequently awarded National Heritage Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

During his earliest years in the United States (1976-1980) Mick Moloney sought out musicians in the Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Philadelphia areas. Among the first was Co. Cavan fiddler Ed Reavy (1897-1988), whose compositions pervade the twentieth-century Irish traditional music repertoire, recorded in Philadelphia in 1974, 1977 and 1979. Flute player Eddie Cahill (b. 1929) was recorded on nine separate occasions in 1977 and 1978. Then one of the leading proponents of the Sligo-style of playing that had come to dominate Irish traditional music due to the influence of 78rpm recordings, Cahill (in a June 5, 1977 interview) describes his stylistic debt to John McKenna whose records he heard at home in Annagh Beg, Co. Sligo before immigrating to Philadelphia in 1950. Likewise, Moloney sought out Al Purcell, a student of the great Leo Rowsome in Dublin. In 1978 Purcell was a wooden model maker for General Motors in Detroit, who not only played and taught the uilleann pipes but repaired and made reeds for them as well. Liz Carroll was first recorded by Moloney in 1976, just after winning the All-Ireland Senior Championship on the fiddle at age eighteen. A native of Chicago and a composer often compared with Ed Reavy, Carroll learned from older musicians like fiddler Johnny McGreevy. McGreevy (b. 1919), uilleann piper Joe Shannon (b. 1919) and pianist Eleanor Kane Neary (b. 1915) are among the Chicago musicians Dr. Moloney frequently recorded. Neary, who played at the 1934 World's Fair, made only one 78rpm solo recording that was commercially released; the Moloney Collection has over eight hours of her performances.

Others notable players recorded by Mick Moloney in private settings include fiddlers Paddy Cronin, Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds and Eugene O'Donnell; flute players Mike Rafferty, Noel Rice, and Richard Hughes; uilleann pipers Tim Britton, Bill Ochs, Jerry O'Sullivan and Joe McKenna; Paddy O'Brien and Gene Kelly, accordion; concertina player Fr. Charlie Coen; and sean nós singer Paddy Tunney. Mary Cooley from Chicago was among the first women artists recorded by Mick Moloney; he documented her talent in 1978 shortly after she had won the 1977 All-Ireland Championship in Ladies Irish Singing.

Mick Moloney also made contact with American musicians who were developing interests in Irish traditional music, such as the folklorist I. Sheldon Posen and guitarist Duck Baker. Posen made a 1977 recording that was eventually included on an album Moloney produced in 1991 (The Music of Ed Reavy), while Baker recorded tunes that later appeared on his 1979 album Irish Reels, Jigs, Hornpipes and Airs.

Many other recording sessions including out-takes, alternate cuts, rough mixes and unreleased albums are to be found in this part of the collection. These include projects by Maureen and John Fitzpatrick, Sean McGlynn and Mike Flynn, Gus Collins, Joe Ryan and Eddie Clarke, James Keane and Jack and Fr. Charlie Coen.

Among the interviews that are of historic importance, are composer/entertainer Shay Healy (b. 1943) who was working in Nashville in 1974; Dennis Clark (1927–1993), historian of the Irish in America, recorded in 1978 at the height of the "roots" phenomena; sean nós singer Joe Heaney (1919–1984) interviewed in 1981 and 1982 while living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; the 1977 reflections of banjo player Mike Flanagan (1898–1990) of the Flanagan Brothers, popular recording artists of the 1920s and early 1930s; Mickey Carton, Mary Carton, and Ruthie Morrissey reminiscing in 1982 about their career on the Rockaway cabaret circuit; Eileen McNulty, last surviving member of the Famous McNulty Family; Arthur Godfrey Show regular Carmel Quinn; Clare fiddler Junior Crehan while on tour of the United States in 1976; "Cuz" Teehan, the Chicago accordion and concertina player, speaking in 1976 with Mick Moloney and Irish broadcaster and music collector Ciarán MacMathúna; the three founders of the Irish Musicians Association interviewed in 1977 in the cities where they each set up branches: Ed Reavy (Philadelphia), Louis Quinn (New York), and Frank Thornton (Chicago); three radio hosts, Tommy Caulfield and Will Regan (both Philadelphia) and Dorothy Hayden Cudahy (New York City); a 1977 interview with Pat Roche, founder of the Harp and Shamrock School of Traditional Dance in Chicago; a March 1990 interview with Irish folk singer Paddy Clancy (1922-1998) when he was in Willow Grove, PA. and a 1991 interview with Tommy Makem (1932-2007) in San Francisco.

Some of the interviews were recorded as source material for liner notes written by Mick Moloney, particularly for Jack and Charlie Coen's 1977 album The Branch Line (Topic), The Martin Mulvihill School - Irish Music: The Living Tradition (Green Linnet, 1977), Johnny Cronin and Joe Burke (Shanachie, 1977), and The Corner House by the Irish Tradition (Green Linnet, 1978).

There are a few exceptions to the Irish-American focus of these field recordings such as a private performance by the Co. Clare fiddler Bobby Casey (1926-2000), recorded in London in 1973, and private performances by famed Ballinakill flute player, Eddie Moloney. Some of these recordings were probably not recorded by Moloney but ended up in his possession and are included here. Other examples of tapes inherited by Moloney include early compilation tapes made by the composer Ed Reavy (1897–1988) and accordionist, Charlie Mulvihill (1917-1975). These include several examples of private performances and home-made 78rpm recordings transferred to tape, which were then circulated among musicians in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s.