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The Catalog
This catalog site is designed so that it can be searched by keyword, collection, type of instrument, and date. It contains information on instruments in the possession of Duke University, with the exception of modern practice and performance pianos.
Modern Orchestral System
Woodwinds
Brass
Percussion
Keyboard
Strings
Paintings
Books
Periodicals
Printed Music
Manuscripts
Recordings
Miscellaneous
Hornbostel-Sachs
Idiophones
Membranophones
Chordophones
Aerophones
Electrophones
The Collections
Eddy
De Hen-Bijl
Miller
DUMIC
Collegium
Replica Harpsichords and Fortepianos
Organs
Music Department Instruments
Contact Info
Dr. Brenda Neece, DPhil (Oxon.)
Curator, DUMIC
Box 90665
Durham, NC 27708-0665
USA
Tel: 919-660-3320
Fax: 919-660-3301
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Welcome
Welcome to the official Duke University Musical Instrument Collections (DUMIC) website. This site is designed to function as an online, database-driven catalog of the musical instrument collections at Duke.
Instruments, recordings, and printed materials are still being added to this catalog. If you have any questions or comments about the contents of this site or of the collections, please contact the curator, Dr. Brenda Neece (bneece@duke.edu).
The website was designed by David Wehrs, a Duke University alumnus. For other examples of his work, or for more information, he can be contacted at david.wehrs@duke.edu.
Special Online Exhibit: Romanian Musical Instruments at DUMIC
This exhibit is the result of the research of scholar Ioana Sherman and features Duke University's Romanian instruments.
Please click here to see our special exhibit
News and Events
Click here to view all the news and events.
April 3, 2009
4 PM
Rare Book Room
Perkins Library, Duke University West Campus
Click here for parking information.

Fred Raimi will discuss and perform on his cello, made in Cremona in 1697 by Vincenzo Ruggieri. The discussion will include questions of quality, authenticity and valuation. Documentation of the cello from 1911 issued by the English firm W.E. Hill and Sons will be shown.
March 27, 2009
4 PM
Rare Book Room
Perkins Library, Duke University West Campus
Click here for parking information.

DoubleAction
Thomas Gregg, tenor
Emily Laurance, harp
DoubleAction will perform a variety of vocal works including a short cantata setting of a Walter Scott poem by John Clarke, a Conradin Kreutzer setting of a Goethe ballad, selections by Rossini, Sarti and
Mayr aswell as popular Scottish songs by the British composers James Hook and John Parry. The duo discovered many of the works that they regularly perform in the Duke Special Collections Library.
Out of Africa: New Fieldwork A/V Materials Come to Duke
Click here for a permanent link to this item
Posted 165 days ago
February 13, 2009
4 PM
Rare Book Room
Perkins Library, Duke University West Campus
Click here for parking information.
Brenda Neece, DUMIC Curator

Last summer DUMIC obtained video and audio cassettes, slides, still photographs, and written materials comprising the fieldwork and research of prominent Belgian organologist/ethnomusicologist Professor Ferdinand J. de Hen, collector of Duke’s Frans & Willemina deHen-Bijl Collection of over 200 instruments from around the world. De Hen’s main interests are the history and structure of classical European, Indian, andAfrican musical instruments. This program is a multi-media overview of these new African materials.
Named for de Hen’s parents, the de Hen-Bijl Collection was acquired during his research expeditions, which were often quite exciting. De Hen remembers that in Morocco he was cured by a medicineman: “Iwas ‘cured’ fromfever by members of the Ait bu Guemmez tribe . . . beating the whole night on their drums….” Even at home he was reminded of his travels: he “had a wonderful butterfly come out in Belgium from an instrument brought back from Swaziland.”
About DUMIC
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. 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 from all over the world. The de Hen Collection together with the Eddy Collection and other individual gifts make up the DUMIC.
It is the aim of DUMIC to provide students, scholars, performers, and interested members of the public with access to these instruments in order to foster awareness and interest in music of the past and an understanding of the complex network of interrelationships among the areas of cultural history, composition, performance, and the art of instrument making. Highlights include instruments from the time of Mozart and Beethoven, the American Civil War, and instruments from around the world, including objects from the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.
The maintenance of the Eddy Collection at Duke is made possible through the generosity of the Ethel Sieck Carrabina Fund.