Western Classical Arts

Music in the Western Classical tradition is represented in MAMU within a number of collections that contain instruments, recorded music and print materials.

Included in this repository, the Lorraine Trytell Collection consists of piano scores and sheet music of classical, folk and popular songs with piano accompaniment; and the Andrew Kolb Collection contains opera programs – the majority of which are of performances presented in Australia.

Renaissance shawms & early European Instruments

MAMU has a small, but growing collection of replica early European instruments which currently includes:

• a Consort of Renaissance shawms (made in northern England)
• a set of crumhorns
• three early keyboard instruments, including an Australian-made Hubbard spinet

The last was designed and built by Hugh Craig. Craig learnt his craft in the workshop of William De Blaise Harpischords before moving from England to Australia in 1971. He was the first qualified harpsichord maker to work in Australia and his commissions include the double manual concert harpsichord at the Sydney Opera House.

Michael Clyne Record bequest

Our sound collection includes a substantial donation from the late Michael Clyne (former linguistics Professor at Monash University) of opera, orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental and vocal works, recorded on 78rpm vinyl discs, from the 1930s onwards.

Another donation from the estate of Erwin Matzner includes similar genres as well as light classical, jazz and popular styles all recorded on either 78rpm or 331/3 rpm vinyl discs.

Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO)

MAMU both facilitates and houses other research outcomes, the most notable being the material (interviews, performance recordings, fieldnotes) gathered from our association with the AYO.

Having been awarded a 3-year (2004-2006) Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant with the AYO to research the activities of this and other youth orchestras around the world (including China, Southeast Asia, Russia, Holland Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Americas), MAMU team members carried out fieldwork at the Annual AYO Camp held at Monash University’s Clayton Campus. The results of our research and that of our national and international colleagues included a themed journal Growing Up Making Music: Youth Orchestras in Australia and the World, published in 2007, and the publication of several articles in refereed academic journals and popular magazines on youth orchestras.

Contributions to the themed journal included articles by former Monash postgraduate student and conductor Andrew Mathers, American ethnomusicologist at the University of Chicago Philip Bohlman and Australian musicologist at the University of California (Berkeley) Ben Etherington. The subject of Etherington’s piece was the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra founded by Daniel Barenboim. Writing the foreword to the themed journal, Daniel commented that the AYO project "rekindle[d] many memories ... In 1958, at age 15, I was the first soloist from abroad to perform with the Australian Youth Orchestra (we played the Grieg Concerto)." He returned in 1962 as soloist for Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.