In this talk, I will examine the curatorial, historical, and ethical challenges posed by an eclectic collection of musical instruments assembled in Manchester at the turn of the twentieth century. The RNCM’s Collection of Historical Musical Instruments (CHMI) – notable for its comparatively large number of instruments originating beyond Europe – emerged as a cultural artefact of late Victorian and Edwardian educational ambition at the nexus of Manchester’s self-fashioning as a global centre of industry and culture, imperial collecting practices, and the civic project of broad public cultural education. In this talk, I address the challenges any curation of the collection presents today, asking how its relationship to the city’s history can be critiqued, who holds the authority or responsibility to do so, and who should be afforded the opportunity to engage in this process?

I will begin by offering an overview of the collection’s formation under Henry Watson, situating it within Manchester’s strive to become a vibrant musical centre around 1900. I trace briefly the collection’s uses and public presentations between 1900 and 1930—from world exhibitions to displays at Heaton Park and the city library—to hint at a critique proper of how colonial possessions were mobilised within civic pedagogies designed to narrate Northern European cultural supremacy. This serves as a springboard to raise questions around the collection’s sonic histories. I will consider steps taken by “custodians of heritage” in the last 10 years that attempt to engage audiences in inclusive and critical engagement with similar collections and histories. Drawing briefly on decolonial archival theory and participatory community-curation practices, I will ask: what stories can this collection tell now? Whose stories are they, which local or regional communities may have a stake in curation and engagement with the instruments, and how should this be approached? What are the risks accompany using the collection as a key part of a broader archive of trans‑Mancunian musics 1860 to 1940? This talk will consider some of the pragmatic and intellectual challenges and opportunities which allow for a nuanced and constructive approach to the decolonisation of institutional collections.

Speaker:

Wiebke Thormählen is Director of Research at the Royal Northern College of Music and in this role is the strategic lead for research, knowledge exchange, BEDI and the library, archive and museum. From 2017-2022, she was co-investigator on the AHRC-funded grant “Music, Home and Heritage: Sounding the Domestic in Georgian Britain,” a project that significantly contributed to the field of Sound Heritage through a variety of interventions with National Trust partners and the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust. Her co-edited volume Sound Heritage: Making Music Matter in Historic Houses brought together musicologist, historians and museum and heritage professionals, and she has recently been able to secure a competitive NWCDTP CDA award for a global majority student in collaboration with Manchester’s collective of “small museums,” the Hidden8. She sits on the steering groups of various Manchester and North-West heritage initiatives with the aim of bringing together academic scholarship and sound creativity with heritage projects.