Bate Collection of Historical Musical Instruments
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The Bate Collection of Historical Musical Instruments is a collection of musical instruments from the Middle Ages onwards. It was housed in Oxford University's Faculty of Music near Christ Church on St. Aldate's before moving to the newly constructed Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in 2026. The Bate Collection is an accredited museum under the Arts Council England Museum Accreditation Scheme UK and the International Council of Museums (ICOM), International Committee of Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music (CIMCIM).
The collection is open to the public and is available for academic study by appointment. There are research, teaching and performances in the exhibition space, and permanent and temporary exhibitions. More than a thousand instruments by important English, French and German makers, are on display, showing the musical and mechanical development of wind and percussion instruments from the Renaissance to the current day.[citation needed]
The Bate Collection is additionally the home of the Reginald Morley-Pegge Memorial Collection of Horns and other Brass and Woodwind Instruments; the Anthony Baines Collection; the Edgar Hunt Collection of Recorders and other instruments; the Jean Henry Collection, the Taphouse Keyboard Loans; the Roger Warner Keyboard Collection; the Michael Thomas Keyboard Collection; a number of instruments from the Jeremy Montagu Collection; a complete workshop of the English bow-maker William C Retford, as well as a small collection of Bows formed in his memory, the Wally Horwood Collection of books and recordings, and other instruments acquired by purchase and gift.
An album, 'Voices From The Past, Vol. 2: Instruments of The Bate Collection' was released in 2015.
History
The collection is named after Philip Bate who began giving his collection of musical instruments to the University of Oxford in 1963, on the condition that it was used for teaching and was provided with a specialist curator to care for and lecture on it. The collection also houses an archive of his papers.
Bate Collection of Musical Instruments (former and current Curators and Conservators)
Dr Philip Bate; Dr Horace Fitzpatrick; Dr Anthony Baines; Dr Jeremy Montagu; Dr Hélèn La Rue; Mr Andy Lamb; Dr Emanuela Vai currenty leads on all conservation, research and curatorial aspects at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments.