Music Department Facilities
The Department of Music is housed in the modern and beautiful
Mary Duke Biddle Music Building, which provides superb facilities
for its diverse needs. Students meet with instructors in well-equipped
classrooms, seminar rooms, and studios. There are twenty practice
rooms with grand pianos, four organ practice rooms, several
harpsichord practice rooms, ensemble rehearsal studios, and Bone Hall, a large rehearsal
hall. The nearby Smith Warehouse has been transformed into the Arts, Culture, and Technology Studios where students interested in computer music will find state-of-the-art equipment. Public performances take place in either the newly refurbished
900-seat Baldwin Auditorium or the more intimate Nelson Music
Room in the East Duke Building.
The Biddle Music Building houses the Music Library with over 100,000 books, scores, journals, and microfilms. The Media Center, with some 30,000 sound recordings and a growing collection of video materials, adjoins a state-of-the-art audio facility which can accommodate 32 listeners. The library's special collections include an archive donated by the Pulitzer-prize-winning composer Robert Ward and an extensive collection of research materials assembled by the Viennese music bibliographer Alexander Weinmann. The Music Library's web pages include links to internet resources for music research.
DUMIC, the Duke University Musical Instrument Collections, are also housed in the Mary Duke Biddle Music Building. DUMIC includes The G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy
Collection, comprised of over 500 late eighteenth-, nineteenth-,
and early twentieth-century instruments with particular depth
in woodwinds, brass, and early pianos, and The Frans and Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection of Musical Instruments, which includes over 200 musical instruments from all over the world. The
Department also has a variety of wind, string, and percussion
instruments available to students for daily practice. Of
special interest is an unusual collection of historical instruments.
There are no fewer than five tracker organs (Brombaugh, Fisk,
Flentrop) in the Music Building (in addition to the four
organs in the Chapel, including the majestic 66-stop
Flentrop and
the new Italian-style Brombaugh). In
addition, the collection includes harpsichords in various
historical styles (German and French doubles by Dowd and
Kingston, Italian and Flemish singles by Edskes and Martin,
etc.), two fortepianos by Smith and Wolff in the Viennese
styles of circa 1790 and 1820, a bible regal by Bruce Shull,
a monochord, renaissance and baroque recorders of various
sizes, several viole da gamba, sackbuts, krummhorns, and
percussion instruments. These instruments are used by faculty
and students in classes and for concerts of early music.