Royal College of Music Museum's 3D-printed recorders feature in LSO St Luke's concert

Thursday 15 October 2026

The Royal College of Music Museum collaborated with LSO St Luke’s on Once upon a place, a concert curated by Euchar Gravina earlier this month. 

At the heart of the collaboration were ten 3D-printed copies of an alto recorder by Jacob Denner (c. 1700) from the RCM Museum’s collection. The instruments featured in Euchar Gravina’s arrangement of the Gregorian chant ‘Introitus’ after Henry Brant, a work inspired by the former life of LSO St Luke’s as an Anglican church, showing how museum collections can inspire new creative experiences. As the RCM Museum continues to explore the possibilities of 3D technologies, this project demonstrates how research, collections and live performance can come together to connect musical heritage with musicians and wider communities today. 

The 3D-printed musical instruments were produced as part of an innovative research project supported by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Using advanced 3D scanning, printing and digital modelling technologies, the project creates faithful reproductions of rare historical instruments while digitally repairing cracks, dents and other imperfections in the originals. These replicas preserve the character and sound-world of the historic instruments while allowing them to be played in contemporary performance settings, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the voices of these instruments. 

The performance brought together members of the New London Chamber Choir and London Symphony Orchestra musicians, joined by Royal College of Music students Luca Imperiale and Joseph Page and RCM Museum staff member Jennifer Tsang, and was part of the LSO Jerwood Composer+ programme, which supports early-career composers. 

Learn more about the Wolfson Centre in Music & Material Culture, which enables research into the RCM Museum's vast collections. 

Main image credit: LSO Wanni Tse