REMAKE-ErcProject

17/06/2026

An important step forward in the digital care of cultural heritage!

Siglato un accordo strategico che vede unire le forze della Direzione generale Digitalizzazione e comunicazione del Ministero della Cultura (DGDC - MiC), del Consiglio Nazionale…

16/06/2026

Register and join us for the next Rem@ke Seminar on Friday, 26th June from 17:00 CEST / 16:00 BST! We have the pleasure of hosting Tim Ingold, Professor Emeritus in Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.

In his talk, "At the Keyboard: Fingerwork and Digitalization," Prof. Ingold will lead us through an in-depth reflection on the role of fingerwork in the age of digitalization. Drawing on personal experience of playing both the cello and the piano, this talk will compare the varieties of fingerwork each instrument demands, placing them in the context of a wider field of variation including practices of drawing, writing, and typing. We show that with technologies of digitalization, the work of the hand has been removed to the fingertips. Today, as digital technology increasingly invades the theatres of everyday life, we are close to losing precious modalities of sentience and expression. For the sake of coming generations, it is vitally important that we keep the skills of fingerwork alive.

Register here: remake.unipv.it/events/ or scan the qr-code.


European Research Council

Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
Università degli studi di Pavia
University of York
Högskolan för scen och musik
University of Gothenburg

05/06/2026

“What does it mean to ‘know’ a musical instrument today?” This question inspires the work of Andrea Gulli, researcher on the REM@KE project.

Online, musical instruments often appear as fragments: catalogue records, images, names, and attributions scattered across collections. These traces are accessible, but they do not yet amount to knowledge; they need to be compared, contextualised, and reconstructed.

In REM@KE, Andrea's work is to empower researchers to connect sources, media, and concepts into semantic graphs where relationships become visible and comparable, while preserving complexity and uncertainty.

The image sketches this process through a “claviorgan” query: from fragmented evidence to validated knowledge.

Diagram includes images of the 1712 Herman Willenbrock claviorgan in the Metropolitan Museum New York, 89.4.2741 (open access images)



European Research Council
Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
Università degli studi di Pavia
University of York
University of Gothenburg
Högskolan för scen och musik

03/06/2026

Did you know?

Historical harpsichords were assembled using hot animal glues rather than modern synthetic adhesives. Made from hides, bones, or fish, these glues had to be applied quickly while hot, before they gelled and lost their adhesive strength.

Instrument makers prized them because, once dry, they became exceptionally hard and crystalline, creating strong joints that transmit sound vibrations efficiently without dampening them—an important quality in musical instruments.

Rabbit-skin glue is perhaps the best-known example, but craftsmen also used fish glue, bone glue, and other regional varieties. In Sweden, historical analysis of a glue fragment from a 14th-century saint's shrine in Östra Vrams Church, Skåne, suggests it likely contained a mixture of goat glue and moose glue.

Traditional craftsmanship was quite literally held together by locally sourced animal glue.

In the picture: detail from Lutherie, Ouvrages et Outils, D. Diderot, L’Encyclopédie [ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers], t. 1–17, Paris 1751–1765, fig. XVIII showing an instrument builder’s workshop with glue pot.


European Research Council

Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
Università degli studi di Pavia
University of York
Högskolan för scen och musik
University of Gothenburg

29/05/2026

Meet the team: Eleanor Smith-Guido

Eleanor is a musicologist, organologist, and occasional soprano specialising in historical keyboard instruments, organs, and instrument-making history. She completed her PhD on the claviorgan at the University of Edinburgh in 2013.

She has nearly twenty years’ experience working with musical instrument museums, collections, and historical keyboard instruments, and is currently Associate Researcher at the University of Gothenburg on the ERC-funded Rem@ke project, where she works on organological research connected with key-lever function as well as the wider Stein microecology.

Eleanor also teaches a course on the history and development of keyboard instruments for the Università di Pavia.

University of Gothenburg Högskolan för scen och musik
Università degli studi di Pavia Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
University of York
Pipes and Strings - Claviorgan Research

European Research Council

27/05/2026

Did you know?

The oldest surviving musical instrument is a 40,000-year-old bone flute found in Hohle Fels cave, Germany, in 2008. Made from a vulture's wing bone with scraped holes, it is 30,000 years older than the wheel or writing. Its design is similar to flutes of other cultures over the world, with a notch on the end where the player blows, representing a highly sophisticated artifact from humanity’s early stages.
To what degree can we access musical knowledge from the past? How is knowledge situated? Learn more about this topic by listening to the Rem@ke Permanent Seminar with Jonathan De Souza, available on our YouTube Channel.

(In the picture: The flute. Foto: H. Jensen. Copyright: Universität Tübingen).


European Research Council

Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
Università degli studi di Pavia
University of York
Högskolan för scen och musik
University of Gothenburg

22/05/2026

Recently, Joseph Thornber - PhD Student at the School of Art and Creative Technologies University of York at the University of York and Rem@ke team member -, was offered the opportunity to present his MA work on accessibility within pipe organ playing at the British Institute of Organ Studies British Institute of Organ Studies Bernard Edmonds Research Conference in Birmingham. "I discussed the issues around increasing engagement with pipe organs within young people’s contemporary culture, and also showcased the work I am doing through the REM@KE project to highlight how we are preserving these historical keyboard instruments for future generations. The presentation was warmly received, and there was a great deal of interest in the latest research for physically and digitally restoring instruments. The event was held at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and there was time to do some keyboard performances afterwards!"

(in the picture: Joseph playing during the conference. Credits: Heather Hammond).

of Arts and Creative Technologies - York
University of York
Högskolan för scen och musik
University of Gothenburg
Università degli studi di Pavia
Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona

20/05/2026

Did you know?

Some famous historical harpsichords were deliberately “rebranded”. Some instruments attributed to the renowned Ruckers workshop were later shown to be altered, falsified, or even counterfeited.
According to the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels (MIM Mimbrussels), Ruckers instruments inspired one of the most significant large-scale counterfeiting in instrument making at the time. These modifications could include changing inscriptions, rebuilding parts of the instrument, or adapting it to new musical tastes—making authorship harder to trace.
What we think of as a “single object” can actually be the result of multiple interventions, decisions, and reinterpretations over time. Understanding an instrument means tracing these layers—not just identifying a maker.

(in the pictures: (1) Clavecin ; Ruckers (Andreas II) ; Anvers ; 1646 ; E.979.2.1 ; détail ; marque au nom
Photo: Albert Giordan. Source: Edutheque - Philharmonie de Paris: Ressources musicales pour l'enseignement; (2) Harpsichord by Joannes Ruckers from L'Illustration Journal Universel, 1858 - p.172. Source: Wikimedia).

Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona
Università degli studi di Pavia
University of York
Högskolan för scen och musik
University of Gothenburg

15/05/2026

Meet the team: Matteo Lombardi

Matteo is a PhD student at the University of Pavia within the Rem@ke research project. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Musicology in 2023, presenting a thesis on the Cadei organ builders of Paratico. In 2025, he completed a Master’s degree in Musicology focusing on musical activity at the Provost Church of San Siro in Soresina. His main research interests concern historical keyboard instruments and issues of performance practice, notably through archival research.
Within the REM@KE project he is eorking on the harpsichord maker Girolamo Zenti, focusing on his production, the distinctive features of his instruments, and his connections with some of the major European courts throughout XVII Century.

Università degli studi di Pavia
Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali - Cremona


European Research Council