The Wolfson Centre in Music & Material Culture, provides easy access to parts of the Royal College of Music's collections for the purpose of research by RCM professors, students and external researchers.
The opening of the facility represents a key component of the More Music project, with works supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Wolfson Foundation. The culmination of the project has seen the retrieval of over 14,000 objects, providing greatly improved access to the RCM’s designated collection of musical instruments, paintings, early prints, drawings and sculptures.
The Wolfson Centre is equipped with climate-controlled storage units, providing a state-of-the-art facility for the long-term protection and access of the collections. A conservation workshop also provides a resource for RCM and external conservators to directly engage with the preservation of our historic objects.
New storage units provide for the housing of c.14,000 items from the Museum collection
The Centre also provides space for object-based learning sessions for RCM and external classes focusing on music between the 18th and 20th centuries. The Centre provides a new space for RCM students to explore, handle, and learn from our Museum collections, as well as a base for methodological introduction and research support for individual student projects.
Additionally, a dedicated research and digitisation space supports both in-person study visits and generation of digital assets, providing space for traditional digitisation methods such as photography as well as space to support emerging techniques such as 3D scanning.
How to visit the Wolfson Centre
For research requests and further information, please read RCM Wolfson Centre - Preparing For Your Visit and contact museum.info@rcm.ac.uk. Visits to the Wolfson Centre are available by appointment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Visitors to the Wolfson Centre can look forward to guided tours, with behind-the-scenes access to seldom-seen rarities and stories from music history.
See our Museum Events for details of upcoming sessions.
The Museum collections can be explored online
