Ken Moore

Background

About Ken Moore

J. Kenneth Moore, formerly the Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, oversaw the curatorial care, display, and programming for the Department of Musical Instruments. Having studied musical iconography with Emanuel Winternitz, first curator of the department, Ken joined the department’s curatorial staff after working in the Museum’s Photo Library and earlier in 1970 as a night watchman. Specializing in non-Western instruments, he has lectured extensively on the holdings of the Museum, organology (the study of musical instruments) and museum studies. He devised descriptive cataloging methods for the Met’s holdings and developed contextual display methods, augmenting them by initiating the first multicultural music series in the Museum in the 1980s. Ken is dedicated to promoting a knowledge and appreciation of the holistic role of music and instruments as both visual and sonic expressions of world cultures. In this capacity he has served as an official for a number of organizations devoted to ethnomusicology and organology to encourage public sector institutions to use musical instruments not only as a music educational tool but as a stepping stone to the study of music, art, science, religion and technology. Ken continues to actively make music and is a long-standing member of New York's MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale). In 2022 he received the Galpin Society's Anthony Baines award for his contributions to the field of organology.