Playing our song
Music offers a unique window into our past, and the stories and collections of our properties contain compelling clues about the music played and enjoyed by earlier generations.
A large collection of rare sheet music lies waiting to be discovered in the cupboards and piano stools of our historic houses, while instruments sit silently in testament to their distant noisy past. Like today, music in the home was an important form of entertainment, a way of enacting social order and a tool for maintaining cultural connectedness.
Through exciting new research, performance and online initiatives we are reviving lost musical soundscapes for modern audiences as well as exploring the idea of ‘home’ and ‘place’ through the lens of music.
Search the collections
Our sheet music collections are being progressively catalogued by the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection and are available on its electronic catalogue.
Digitised sheet music and manuscripts
A selection of domestic sheet music and music manuscripts from the collections of our historic house museums and Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection has been digitised and is now available through the Internet Archive.
Songs of home
Past exhibition
Songs of Home
Songs of Home tells the little-known story of music played and enjoyed in NSW during the first 70 years of the colony
Related
Songs of home
The Odyssey of an Early Australian Piano
Imagine for a moment if all the old pianos lying around Australia could speak. One can only guess at the stories they would tell
Music in our Houses
Join Dr Matthew Stephens as he discusses how we can convert musical museum objects into musical sound
Published on
Related
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Hearing the music of early New South Wales
A new website documents an exciting partnership between Museums of History NSW and the University of Sydney in an exploration of Indigenous song and European settler vocal and instrumental music in early colonial NSW
Dressing Joan Sutherland
One of the most spectacular costumes on display in the exhibition The People’s House: Sydney Opera House at 50 is an extraordinary Renaissance dress designed by Kristian Fredrikson and worn by Dame Joan Sutherland in the part of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia
First Nations
Paving the way ... Harold Blair: The first Aboriginal opera singer
A short documentary that offers a glimpse into the life of Harold Blair, a world-renowned tenor, family man and political campaigner who sought social justice and human rights for Australia’s First Nations people
First Nations
Harold Blair, trailblazer
Wulli Wulli tenor Harold Blair AM was Australia’s first professionally trained Aboriginal opera singer