Music Museum of Nepal (MMN)

About us

The Music Museum of Nepal (MMN) was founded in the year 1995 with a view of collecting, preserving and glorifying Nepali folk musical instruments and was registered as a charity in 1997. There are more than 100 ethnic groups in Nepal, each with their own culture and traditions to mark every occasion from birth to death with music. Each group organizes various musical ceremonies and plays their own musical instruments in accordance with traditions and rituals. Many groups such as Gaine, Damai, Badi have adopted folk music as their way of life and play folk musical instruments professionally. Our study has found more than 1350 kinds of musical instruments in Nepal.

Our work
• The museum is open to the public and houses the world’s largest collection of Traditional Nepali Music Instruments and also the biggest and most comprehensive Audiovisual Archive of Traditional Nepali Music and Dance. We are continually adding newly acquired instruments and audiovisual recordings and updating the database.
• We have so far digitised approximately 10% of MMN’s total analogue audiovisual archive, most of which will be made available online via the BL website. We are continuing the digitisation work as and when sufficient funds become available to pay technicians salaries.
• MMN has reconstructed and reintroduced some of Nepal’s extinct folk musical instruments following information gleaned from temple iconography and from the memories of senior citizens.
• We publish musical instrument training manuals, other music books, audio CDs and DVDs for sale and can also provide hand crafted musical instruments to order.

Activities
• International Folk Music Film Festival: Music Museum of Nepal, Kathmandu hosted the first annual International Folk Music Film Festival, in Nepal, in 2011. The festival was an immediate success and has become more popular each year. Each day of the three-day event with the theme “Music for life, Music for survival” is dedicated to a different musicologist, musician or folk music filmmaker.
• Publication of Music Museum of Nepal’s biennial journal, ‘Baja’. Articles are in Nepali or English.
• A monthly workshop and concert for Tribhuvan University music students, which others are welcome to join.
• We provide guided tours to visitors and especially to large numbers of visiting school groups.
• Identification of endangered folk musical instruments and their musicians.
• Musical training classes for both adults and children.
• Regular concerts eg featuring rare instruments or music of a particular geographical area.
• Publication of books, training manuals, audio CDs and DVDs
• Transcription of melodies in musical notation.

Ram Prasad Kadel is the Founder of the Music Museum of Nepal (MMN).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.