John Watson

Remember that fellow from Williamsberg? The one that I went and met with and cooed over a derelict, but historically interesting spinet with? I called him today about this whole Horniman thing. (It was really scary, I much prefer e-mail.) Here is what I found out:

*Galpin Society: society in Britain of people working with musical instruments: curators, researchers, historians, etc.

*The Horniman is either the most important instrument collection in England, or one of the most important. (I don't remember exactly what he said, I wasn't taking notes at that point.)

*I would have a better chance if I had any sort of museum studies, but it is certainly worth a try applying for the position.

*The guy who started Target is retiring and with his retirement is starting a new music museum that will be in Phoenix, AZ. It, cleverly enough, is called (The?) Musical Instrument Museum. (As far as I can tell, it doesn't yet have an online presence.)

*The National Music Museum in Vermilion, SD is apparently the fastest growing museum in America and all sorts of important instrument societies are having their conferences there and such. The downside being that it is in the middle of nowhere. In South Dakota.

So anyhow- I'm glad I called him, he told me to keep in touch and to definitely go for the position (Even though he thinks that what I should really be doing is more along the lines of museum education. Eh, probably.) So there you go. If you're supposed to do at least one scary thing a day, that totally counts for today. Now I'm off to go hold keys for Eliot at the Basilica (my first time working there, apparently the organ is huge and it is quite possible to get lost inside of it. Circuitous donchaknow.) And then Andrew has his gamba recital at 6:30, so that should be really cool.