Royal Conservatory of Brussels

Coordinates: 50°50′20″N 4°21′21″E / 50.8390°N 4.3558°E / 50.8390; 4.3558
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles
)

Royal Conservatory of Brussels
  • Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles (
    EhB (Dutch-speaking entity)
DirectorPeter Swinnen (Flemish entity)
Frédéric de Roos (French entity)
Location
Brussels
,
Belgium
Websitewww.kcb.be/en (Flemish entity)
www.conservatoire.be (French entity)

The Royal Conservatory of Brussels (

Luk De Konink. Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone
, also studied at the Brussels Conservatory.

In 1967, the institution split into two separate entities: the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, which teaches in

Erasmus University College
as one of its Schools of Arts.

Building

The current Royal Conservatory building consists of three wings arranged around a courtyard and is the work of architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar, built to his designs between 1872 and 1876.

The style is

Louvre. The decoration of the facade is very elaborate, with five separate pediment sculptures (Instrumental Music by the Liège sculptor Adolphe Fassin, Orchestration by Charles van der Stappen, Composition by the Antwerp sculptor Frans Deckers, Performing Arts by Antoine-Félix Bouré, and Poetry by the Tournai sculptor Barthélemy Frison) and other incidental work including garlands, caryatids, palm trees and musical instruments by the sculptors Georges Houtstont, Paul de Vigne, Antoine van Rasbourg, Auguste Braekevelt, and Égide Mélot
.

Auxiliary activities

Concerts

Each year a variety of regular student concerts and performances is organised by the Conservatory, boasting over hundred events and enhanced by two festivals.

The right wing of the Conservatory contains a 600 seats ornate concert hall in Napoleon III style with exceptional acoustic qualities, equipped with a Cavaillé-Coll organ.

Concert hall of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels

Musical Instrument Museum (MIM)

Main article: Musical Instrument Museum, Brussels

Founded in 1877 to provide students with a practical education about ancien instruments, the Conservatory museum, currently referred to as the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) of Brussels displays over 8,000 ancient instruments acquired by the celebrated musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, rare pieces from the initial collection, from the various funds or from new acquisitions.[1][2] Since 2000, the museum, one of the most important ones of its kind, is located in the prestigious Art Nouveau building conceived in 1899 by the architect Paul Saintenoy for the former Old England department store.[3]

Library

Initially created with a pedagogic aim, the Conservatory library hosts about 250,000 [citation needed] references, representing a scientific instrument of international resonance.

Library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, c. 1960

It primarily consists of works about music (including more than 1200 musical or musicological periodicals), as well as of autograph, printed or digitized (scanned) scores. There is also an important collection of more than 8.000 libretti of Italian, French or German operas from the XVIIe and XVIIIe s., lute and guitar tablatures, several thousands of handwritten letters of musicians, iconographic documents (over 9.000 pieces), concert programmes and various types of recordings (magnetic tapes, video, 78 and 33 rpm vinyl, CD, etc.).

Next to the core collections, the library possesses several subcollections of historical importance, together forming an extensive patrimony:

  • the Johann J.H. Westphal collection bought by Fétis (manuscripts of C.P.E. Bach and G.P. Telemann),
  • the Richard Wagener collection acquired by the librarian Alfred Wotquenne (German music from the XVIIe, XVIIIe and XIXe s. including 40 autograph manuscripts from three sons of J.-S. Bach),
  • the Jean-Lucien Hollenfeltz collection (documents of Constance Mozart and her youngest son Franz Xaver Amadeus Mozart),
  • the Maria Malibran collection (documents and objects from the cantatrice and her close family),
  • the
    Edmond Michotte collection
    (pieces from Rossini's private library),
  • the Józef Wieniawski collection (autograph scores from the pianist),
  • the Laurent Halleux collection,
  • the Joseph Jongen collection.

The library is open to the general public. In 2015, the library acquired the score collection of CeBeDeM (Belgian Centre for Music Documentation). In doing so it also took over the latter's objectives in promoting Belgian contemporary music worldwide.[4]

Personalities linked to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels

Directors

François-Joseph Fétis, first director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels

Directors of the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles

Directors of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel

  • 1966–1994: Kamiel D'Hooghe (in Dutch)
  • 1994–2004: Arie Van Lysebeth (in Dutch)
  • 2004–2008: Rafael D'haene
  • 2008–2017: Peter Swinnen
  • 2017–2021: Kathleen Coessens
  • 2021–present: Jan D'haene

Notable faculty

Notable alumni

References

Citations

  1. ^ Damscrhroder 1990, p. 85.
  2. ^ State 2015, p. 166.
  3. ^ "Old England – Inventaire du patrimoine architectural". monument.heritage.brussels (in French). Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  4. ^ "CeBeDeM collection". Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  5. ^ Henri, Vanhulst (2008). "Fétis directeur du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles". Revue Belge de Musicologie (in French). 62: 127–133.
  6. ^ Henri, Vanhulst (2011). "Gevaert directeur du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles". Revue Belge de Musicologie (in French). 65: 9–19.
  7. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0
    .

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

50°50′20″N 4°21′21″E / 50.8390°N 4.3558°E / 50.8390; 4.3558

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_Conservatory_of_Brussels&oldid=1219528187"