MAMU exhibitions and concerts
MAMU has organised many public exhibitions and concerts of music and dance that celebrated a wide range of cultures, as well as several international conferences. In the early days, the general focus was on Australian Aboriginal music. By 1972, research and performance of Indonesian music had emerged to supplement that focus, and by the mid-1970s, Indian and early European music were added, as well as intermittent exhibits and concerts representing regions such as Africa, New Guinea, Thailand, Japan and parts of Europe. With a few exceptions, the exhibitions could more accurately be described as small displays but that changed in 2004 when Margaret Kartomi arranged for the Symposium of the International Musicological Society to be held in Melbourne for the second time (the first was in 1988). Since then the numbers of major exhibitions and associated concerts increased and culminated with a total of five in 2019, with three more concerts not linked to exhibitions staged toward the end of the year. Unfortunately, everything had to come to an abrupt halt in 2020 due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and mandatory lockdowns. Below is a sample of some of our conferences and exhibitions. Upcoming and more recent events can be found in our news and events feed.
The catalogues and some programs relating to the 2019 exhibitions and concerts, and to selected examples of them from 2018 to 2015 inclusive, are accessible by clicking on links in the listings below. A number of conference programs are also accessible.
For a short history of MAMU’s involvement in exhibitions and concerts and related information prior to 2015, please click here. These public activities of MAMU bring to life its holdings of historic documents, artefacts, ephemera and more, and demonstrate how it not only preserves the past but is an invaluable resource for future generations to use, learn from and enjoy.