CHIME Collection for Chinese Music Research
Why is it that one of the world's biggest and most fascinating music cultures is so little known? How is it possible that such a vast field of musical traditions, spanning a history of over four thousand years and covering an area larger than Europe, has been grossly overlooked by so many researchers and students of Chinese culture?
The Dutch scholars Antoinet Schimmelpenninck (+ 2012) and Frank Kouwenhoven felt triggered by this question, and in early 1990, together with a number of young European colleagues, they initiated the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, short: CHIME.
The two had been exploring musical China since 1986, visiting rural Jiangsu to collect local folk songs, studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and collecting books, recordings and instruments. With the founding of CHIME in 1990 their hitherto private collection became the official CHIME Library, covering virtually any type of Chinese music, from local opera to pop and rock, from Buddhist chants to tribal rituals. Then, together with the materials, also musicians began to cross over to Europe, by the hundreds, to play in international festivals hosted or supported by CHIME. The artists donated scores, precious books of their own, instruments and other rare items.
After the turn of the millennium, the CHIME Library, now located in a picturesque early 17th century building in the centre of Leiden, had evolved into one of the largest collections on Chinese music outside Asia. As of 2018, some 5,000 books and scores, 100 subscribed journals and 5,000 tapes and discs of all kind with sound and film recordings filled its shelves. To secure the future of this library and to make it more accessible, the CHIME Foundation decided to hand the collection over to the East Asian Library of Heidelberg University, a library with already strong holdings on Chinese music. Here, all audio-visual and manuscript material will be integrated into the digital infrastructure of the library. Merging the Heidelberg collection on Chinese music with the CHIME collection to form the new CHIME Collection at CATS Library, both its printed and digital resources will be an important starting point for those who understand the cultural, social, political and historical relevance of this research field for area studies and beyond.
For information on how to access the C.C. Liu Collection please refer to our Chinese Music Collections portal.
