Workshop: Kate Kennedy and the Mary Remnant Foundation

Open to children of all ages and adults alike, during this session you can learn about and try out early instruments. During her lifetime Mary Remnant collected over 150 musical instruments, a selection of which will be presented by curator and author Kate Kennedy. 

This will be a fun-filled educational workshop where children will learn and discover for themselves how musical instruments developed into the ones we have today.

Dr Mary Remnant (1935–2020) was a renowned English musicologist, musician, and a leading figure in the Early music revival in the United Kingdom. She was a world-renowned expert on medieval musical instruments. Her research often involved studying carvings and manuscripts in churches across Europe to reconstruct and play instruments that had been lost for centuries.

A versatile performer, she played the violin, piano, and a vast array of early instruments, including the organistrum, rebec, psaltery, and the Sutton Hoo lyre.

She served as a Professor at the Royal College of Music (RCM) from 1970 to 1994 and held a DPhil from Oxford University. Her major works include Musical Instruments of the West and English Bowed Instruments from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor Times, which won the Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize. For her lifelong service to the Roman Catholic Church, she was appointed a Papal Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great in 2016.

Her collection of over 150 instruments and thousands of research photographs is now preserved by the Museum of Music History, curated by Kate Kennedy herself.