Professor Gabriele Rossi Rognoni

MA, Dott. abil., HonRCM

Professor of Material Culture and Music

Doctoral Supervisor

Gabriele Rossi Rognoni has been Curator of the Royal College of Music Museum since January 2014 and was appointed Personal Chair of Material Culture and Music in November 2017.

He was President of the International Committee of Music Museums of ICOM (The International Council of Museums), Board member of the Galpin Society, of the Benton Fletcher Collection of Keyboard Instruments (Fenton House, National Trust), and member of the Research Committee of the Museum of the Violin in Cremona and of the Musical Instrument Department of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. He served as advisory Board member of the American Musical Instrument Society between 2011 and 2013.

Between 2001 and 2013 he was Curator of the Musical Instrument Department of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, where he also co-curated two international exhibitions. From 2007 he was Adjunct Professor at the University of Florence, holding courses in History of Music, History of Musical Instruments and Music Analysis. In 2013 he received Academic Habilitation as Associate Professor in History of Music.

He has been in charge, or co-coordinated, major redevelopments of several music museums, including the Medici and Lorraine collections at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence (1998-2001, with Franca Falletti and Renato Meucci), the Museum of the Violin in Cremona (2011-2013, with Renato Meucci) and the Royal College of Music Museum.

He also managed major research and redevelopment projects funded by the European Union, Heritage Lottery Fund, Higher Education Funding Council for England, COST-EU, International Council of Museums, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Pilgrim Trust, Wolfson Foundation and DCMS, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, Arts Council of England, and Museum of London.

He was Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation (2001) and Sylvan C. Coleman and Pamela Coleman Fellow in Curatorship (2007) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Institut für Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin (2011).

Gabriele is a LAHP (London Arts & Humanities Partnership) doctoral student supervisor, currently supervising the work of Arianna Rigamonti and supervises PhD projects in the areas of material culture, musical instrument studies, musical iconography and museology.

His publications focus on the history and technology of musical instruments and methods of identification. A selection is available at https://rcm.academia.edu/GabrieleRossiRognoni and http://goo.gl/dtPGZo

Faculties / departments: Research, Academic staff