National museum blends instruments’ history, art

“When you think of other collections, especially other collections in the United States, they are in art museums,” says Sarah Richardson, curator of musical instruments. “And so a lot of times when the instruments are collected, they’re collected for their artistic value rather than their musical value.”

The 800 instruments on display at the museum — tucked away in the small university town of Vermillion — make up just a fraction of the more than 13,500 items in its collection, which museum director Andre Larson calls “by far the largest, most comprehensive one anywhere now.”

“This is the only place really where you find all these things brought together, American, European and non-Western,” Larson said.

Visitors can use personal digital assistants and earphones to take a self-guided tour — complete with video and audio clips of the instruments on display.

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~ by kingstonstone on July 13, 2008.