Mission
Building on our previous project Tune-In.eu, which explored inclusive and participatory approaches to music and heritage, KeyboardHeritage.eu marks the next step: moving from experimentation to structural transformation and long-term European cooperation.
Where Tune-In.eu set out a call for a more inclusive, participatory and socially relevant musical ecosystem, KeyboardHeritage.eu operationalises this vision with this new initiative addressing a pressing systemic challenge: the safeguarding, reactivation, and sustainable future of Europe’s historic keyboard heritage as living sound heritage connected to historic buildings and local communities.
The challenge
Across Europe, semi-immobile historic keyboard instruments – such as fortepianos, square pianos, harmoniums, and house organs – are rapidly disappearing.
Museums are deaccessioning, private collections are dissolving, and the specialised craftsmanship required for their maintenance is at risk. With their loss, Europe risks losing not only objects, but an entire soundscape embedded in historic houses, country estates, and communities.
At the same time, heritage sites often lack the frameworks, incentives, and knowledge to reintegrate these instruments into their original contexts. This disconnect between object, place, and community runs counter to the principles of the Faro Convention.
The response
KeyboardHeritage.eu responds to this challenge by establishing a European platform that reconnects:
- tangible, intangible, and built heritage
- professional sectors and communities
- local practices and European frameworks
The project’s central ambition is to create a permanent European stakeholder platform – the European Keyboard Heritage Network (EKHN) – that enables cooperation, knowledge exchange, and co-creation across borders and disciplines.
A European Heritage Hub
Goal
KeyboardHeritage.eu is conceived as a lasting European infrastructure, aligned with the European Heritage Hub framework organized by Europa Nostra.
Collaboration with
Achieve target by
developing a European Heritage Hub for sound heritage, in which:
- symposia act as visible anchor moments at European level
- webinars function as a continuous co-creation engine
- the online platform ensures long-term accessibility and impact
A complementary network
Importantly, the network is complementary to existing European structures, such as among others REMA, European Historic House Association and others: it connects stakeholders that are currently fragmented across sectors, rather than duplicating existing networks.
Expected Impact
KeyboardHeritage.eu contributes directly to the implementation of the Faro Convention by:
- placing musical sound heritage and its period keyboard instruments back into society
- strengthening participation by local communities and co-creation by musicians and keyboard mechanic crafts
- fostering European cooperation and shared responsibility
Long-term impact includes
- a permanent European network (EKHN)
- practical tools and guidelines for the heritage sector
- strengthened links between heritage, music, crafts, and communities
- a replicable model for other forms of semi-immobile and living heritage