Royal Conservatory of Brussels

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 (Library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, B-Bc, SLZ)

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 musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, rare pieces from the initial collection, from the various funds or from new acquisitions. 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 England department store.

Initially created with a pedagogic aim, the Conservatory library hosts about 250,000 references, representing a scientific instrument of international resonance.

Library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, c. 1960 (B-BC, ICO-98022-3)

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 Jean-Lucien Hollenfeltz collection (documents of Constance Mozart and her youngest son Franz Xaver Amadeus Mozart),
• the Maria Malibran collection (documents and objects from the cantatrice and her close family),
• the Edmond Michotte collection (pieces from Rossini's private library),
• the Józef Wieniawski collection (autograph scores from the pianist),
• the Laurent Halleux collection,
• the Joseph Jongen collection.

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.

• 1833–1871: François-Joseph Fétis
• 1871–1908: François-Auguste Gevaert
• 1908–1912: Edgar Tinel
• 1912–1925: Léon Du Bois
• 1925–1939: Joseph Jongen
• 1939–1949: Léon Jongen
• 1949–1966: Marcel Poot

• 1966–1973: Camille Schmit (in French)
• 1974–1987: Éric Feldbusch (in French)
• 1987–2002: Jean Baily (in French)
• 2003–present: Frédéric de Roos

• 1966–1994: Kamiel D'Hooghe (in Dutch)
• 1994–2004: Arie Van Lysebeth (in Dutch)
• 2004–2008: Rafael D'haene
• 2008–2017: Peter Swinnen
• 2017–2021: Kathleen Coessens
• 2021–present: Jan D'haene