| The Bagpipe Music Museum, located in Ellicott City, Maryland, is the only
museum of its kind in the Western hemisphere, and is home to the world’s
largest privately held collection of bagpipes and bagpipe music. Founded in
1997 by James Coldren, the Bagpipe Music Museum (BMM) is home to over 80 sets
of bagpipes, over 2000 recordings of bagpipe music on CD’s, tapes, and
records, and literally hundreds of printed publications of bagpipe music. James
Coldren started the collection that eventually became the BMM in the mid –
1960’s while playing as a member of the Thistle Gildry Pipe Band in New
York City. He found that, like many pipers, he would hear a tune he wanted to
learn, but had no idea where to find the music. He set out to create his own
index of pipe music using every resource that he could muster. In 1966, his
index was published and was the first index of bagpipe music ever printed.
Since that time, other indexes have been published, but Coldren’s index is
still in use today, because the index is backed up with the score for the tune
so pipers can "see the music". Coldren’s indexing efforts
continue to this day, and his database now consists of over 48,000 entries.
About ten years ago, he began collecting bagpipes in addition to bagpipe music.
Among the sets of bagpipes at the BMM are Great Highland Bagpipes of every style
and sort, along with Uillean pipes, Brian Boru pipes, pipes from Sweden,
Sicily, Italy, Russia, and several other cultures and places. The collection of
recorded music is no less impressive, with every commercial bagpipe recording
imaginable, and several other recordings that have not been released for sale.
The holdings of the printed bagpipe music collection at the BMM surpasses many
of the major collections found in Scotland, and includes dozens of manuscripts,
hand-written settings, and other piping-related pieces, in addition to the
hundreds of bagpipe music books.
The BMM supports Ceol Sean’s efforts to create bagpipe music books on
CD’s, and has collaborated in the production of each of the CD’s
offered by Ceol Sean. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each Ceol Sean
CD is returned to the BMM to support its efforts in advancing bagpiping.
The Bagpipe Music Museum is open by appointment by calling 410/313-9311
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