Museums that make noise. Looking into the future of the Schubert Club Museum

Abstract

Changing demographics are reshaping the role of museums within communities across the United States and how they define relevance. Although museums are currently seeking ways to create meaningful experiences for museum-goers, the concept of relevance has rarely been defined in connection with museology. This research theorizes that to become relevant, museums may look at new contemporary articulations to match new participatory practices. Specifically, audience engagement models in music museums are investigated because those institutions have not garnished enough attention to generate a corpus of research. This study highlights the Schubert Club Museum, which is a small musical instrument museum in St. Paul, Minnesota. The goal is to showcase the potential of this museum to reinterpret its role within the community and reinvent how its exhibits are conceived. This study provides recommendations that can be adopted in other musical instrument museums.