October 2013/ 1 CIMCIM BULLETIN Comité International des Musées et Collections d‘Instruments de Musique Comité Internacional de Museos y Colecciones de Instrumentos Musicales International Committee of Musical Instrument Museums and Collections CONTENT President‘s Message . 1 Allen Roda Meeting report and reflections from a travel grant recipient . 3 Silke Berdux Sonja Neumann Panagiotis Poulopoulos Panel Session: Photo: Lisbet Torp New Media for The Faculty of Music and the Bate Collection – home to the Galpin-CIMCIM conference. Musical Instrument Collections: Trend, Luxury or necessity? . 4 President‘s Message ies«, »English Eccentrics«, »At the Work Bench«, »Instruments Across the Ages«, The Oxford conference 2013 Heike Fricke »International Influences«, and »Keyboard Sabine K. Klaus CIMCIM’s annual meeting and conferen- Instruments«. Arnold Myers ce 2013 took place in Oxford during July In addition to the above mentioned the- Quo Vadis, Organology? . 8 25 through 29 upon invitation from the mes, two specific themes had each been Galpin Society, which generously opened given a time frame of a full day. Thus, the Minutes of the CIMCIM its annual conference to include CIMCIM second day of the conference was devo- General Assembly . 14 and its members. The Faculty of Music of ted to the project »Making the Tudor Vi- the University of Oxford provided ideal ol« including live viol music in the garden CIMCIM Conference 2014 conditions for the conference – indoors during the lunch break. The programme in the Nordic Countries . 16 as well as outdoors – with Andy Lamb of the last day was organized around to- as the perfect host. Hence, CIMCIM once pics related to music museums including a again enjoyed the privilege and pleasure panel session on »New Media for Musical Exhibitions/Conferences . 18 of joining a collegial society in a confe- Instrument Collections: Trend, Luxury or rence where shared interests and organo- Necessity?«. The papers of the New Media logical insights go hand in hand. Thanks panel and the succeeding discussion ad- New Book Releases . 19 to the hosts, the Oxford conference was dressed acute and relevant topics at a time a delightful and professionally rewarding when curators and museum mediators event. need to think of new ways and means in The overall theme Musical Instruments – their outreach to visitors who – regardless History, Science and Culture offered a wide of age and background – have access to a range of papers carefully chosen and or- wealth of digital and interactive sources Editor: Heike Fricke Texts should be submitted to: ganized by the Programme Committee via the internet. (A report on the papers [email protected] under the following sub-themes: »Trade presented and the discussion following Deadline for the next and Business«, »Methods and Analysis«, the panel session can be found on pp. 4-7) CIMCIM Newsletter: 15.04.2014 »New Directions in Musical Instruments«, In addition to conference papers, the pro- »Plucked Strings«, »Renaissance Discover- gramme offered guided tours by Ben Heb- CIMCIM Bulletin · October 2013 1 President‘s Message Christ Church College and Cathedral, the Faculty of Music’s outstanding neighbour. bert to the unique Stradivarius exhibition elections to the Board. As a result of this Walking along St. Aldates. at the Ashmolean Museum, Jeremy Mon- it is my pleasure to announce that the fol- tagu generously opened his house and pri- lowing CIMCIM members were elected to vate collection to conference participants, the Board for the election term of 2013- and the Bate Collection, housed at the Fa- 2016. culty of Music, was open throughout the Executive Board whole conference. The programme also offered a gamelan workshop, an organ re- Lisbet Torp, President (Denmark) cital in Pembroke College Chapel, a lecture Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, Vice President recital, »The Lute Made Easy«, by Matthew (Italy) Spring given at the Holywell Music Room Bradley Strauchen-Scherer, Secretary (USA) – the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Patrice Verrier, Treasurer (France) Europe, opened to the public in 1748 – and Advisory Board finally, a theremin recital by Lydia Kavina was an integral part of the gala dinner Eric de Visscher (France) served at St Cross College. Darcy Kuronen (USA) On behalf of the CIMCIM membership, I Golnaz Golsabahi (Iran) cordially thank the Galpin Society and its Frank Bär (Germany) chairman Graham Wells for having us, the Alla Bayramova (Azerbayjan) Photos: Lisbet Torp Faculty of Music for housing us, local host Zhang Xiang (China) On the way to Jeremy Montagu’s private Andy Lamb, chair of the organizing com- collection – Jeremy leading his flock. Coopted member to the Board mittee, for making us feel at home and welcome at the faculty, the programme Heike Fricke, CIMCIM Bulletin Editor Minutes of the 2013 General Assembly can committee’s driving forces Lance White- (Germany) be found pp. 14 of this Bulletin. head and Bradley Strauchen, as well as fa- culty staff and students who helped th- Some of the above board members were Future conferences roughout the conference. reelected in their current functions and Scandinavia 2014 Warm thanks also go to the benevolent others are new on the Board. sponsors who joined forces with the or- On behalf of the CIMCIM membership, The 2014 conference is organized as a ganizers in making the Oxford conference I thank the outgoing members for their travelling conference visiting Sweden, a success. support and services to CIMCIM and its Finland, Denmark, and Norway in succes- membership over the past six years: sion. The invitation from the Nordic coun- General Assembly and elections to Christiane Barth, Treasurer (Germany), tries was extended to the membership at the CIMCIM Board Martin Elste, member of the Advisory the General Assembly by Mats Krouthén Board (Germany), Darryl Martin, member (Ringve Museum,Trondheim). The prelimi- On July 26 during the second day of of the Advisory Board (UK), Arnold Myers, nary programme of the Scandinavian con- the conference, CIMCIM held its annual coopted member to the Advisory Board ference is presented on pp. 16. General Assembly which this year included (UK) 2 CIMCIM Bulletin · October 2013 President‘s Message Moscow 2015 As previously announced, CIMCIM has ac- cepted an invitation from Mikhail Bryzga- lov, Director of the Glinka National Mu- seum Consortium of Musical Culture, to hold its conference in Moscow in 2015. In preparation for this event, the Board and Mikhail Bryzgalov met over fruitful discussions about guidelines, practicalities and necessities regarding the forthcoming Moscow conference during the meeting in Oxford. Milan 2016 In 2016, CIMCIM’s annual meeting will be part of the triennial ICOM conference. Hence, we shall hopefully meet in Milan where we shall share mutual interest and concerns with members of all the other international and national ICOM commit- tees. Hoping to see you all at the future con- Photo: Lisbet Torp ferences and events, I send you my best wishes and warm regards, Hands-on in the Bate Collection – Mikhail Bryzgalov in action. Lisbet Torp Meeting report and reflections from from greater interaction. I also think that This brings me to my last reflection. Orga- CIMCIM travel grant recipient Allen theoretical developments in science and nologists (or at least those in attendan- Roda technology studies, material culture stu- ce at the conference in Oxford) seem to It was a great pleasure to attend the an- dies, and sound studies over the last ten be a remarkably homogenous group tas- nual meeting in Oxford, and I would like to fifteen years might be very interesting ked with representing the diverse musical to thank CIMCIM for the travel award, wi- to discuss among musical instrument cultures of the world to the public at lar- thout which it would have been impossible scholars. ge. How do instrument curators address for me. From my perspective as an ethno- Following along the notion of interdisci- inherent cultural biases that are in many musicologist somewhat new to the field plinarity, it struck me that every instituti- ways built into the structure of these insti- of musical instrument collections, I would on housing a museum collection serves a tutions, if not the collections themselves? offer these reflections, with the prelimi- unique purpose and that it would be extre- How do they reconcile the sheer impossi- nary observation that nothing I present mely difficult to develop standards or prac- bility of becoming an expert in all of these here will be new to anyone in the field. tices that could be universally applicable musical traditions with their own personal Firstly, I am deeply impressed with the ri- across these various needs. (I imagine this interests and specializations? I personal- gor and enthusiasm of object-oriented re- must be one of the largest hurdles facing ly find these challenges to be both daun- search among organologists and their at- the MIMO project.) In Oxford alone, I visi- ting and exciting. I was thrilled to meet so tention to detail. At times I felt like these ted the Bate, Pitt Rivers, Ashmolean, and many museum professionals working with conversations would dovetail so nicely Montagu collections, and while in London musical instruments and to have casual into other scholarly discourse on materi- I visited the Horniman and the Asian Music conversations about everything from the al culture or science and technology stu- Circuit. While all of these institutions fa- politics of polishing metal to the produc- dies, especially if we began to think more ce similar problems, they have such diffe- tion of historically-accurate reeds. I thank broadly about some of the issues raised rent constituencies, which ultimately im- CIMCIM again for the opportunity to par- through our close readings of physical ob- pact their display and conservation prac- ticipate in the conference. I walked away jects. The study of musical instruments is tices.