In 1967, the institution split into two separate entities: the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, which teaches in Dutch, and the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, which continued teaching in French. While the French-speaking entity remained an independent public institution of higher education (École supérieure des arts), the Flemish entity integrated into the newly created 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.
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
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 musicologistFrançois-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 Englanddepartment 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 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