Duke University Musical Instrument Collections

The Duke University Musical Instrument Collections (DUMIC) are founded on the flagship collection, the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived here in Durham in 2000. The Eddy Collection has inspired further generous gifts and the acquisition of the Frans and Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived at Duke in 2003. The Robert D. Miller Collection of replicas of early instruments and related materials, including a small library of printed music, was bequeathed to DUMIC in 2006. The other instruments in the collection were given as individual gifts, and are classified as part of the overall DUMIC collections. While the Eddy Collection consists primarily of instruments and paintings of instruments from America and Europe, Duke’s de Hen Collection includes over 200 musical instruments, 100 reel-to-reel field recordings, and 1000 slides of instruments from all over the world. The de Hen Collection together with the Eddy Collection, the Miller Collection, and other individual gifts make up DUMIC.

Our Mission Statement

The mission of DUMIC is to preserve, present, interpret, and share the objects in its care, in keeping with the Department’s and Duke’s great goals and mission to provide a superior liberal arts education by promoting and enhancing students’ understanding of the many ways we create, comprehend, and perform music.

Special Contributors

Dr. Roseen Giles is an Assistant Professor of Music as well as the curator of DUMIC. Her faculty page can be found here: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/Roseen.Giles

Hannah Krall is a musicologist interested in early music and jazz improvisation, traditional jazz, and music for the viola da gamba. She has a BA in Music from Cornell University (magna cum laude). She supervised the creation of this site and renovation of the collection.

John Santoianni is the Ethel Sieck Carrabina Curator of Organs and Harpsichords and serves on the DUMIC committee, frequently assessing, tuning, and in other ways maintaining pianos in the collection.

Creators

Abby Johnson, Peter Petroff, David Tierney, and Elaine Guo are the official creators of the DUMIC website and redesigned the instrument museum in the Mary Duke Biddle Music Building as of June 2022.