The World of the Takeuchi Dokei Collection, a treasure trove of early modern Japanese music materials, has been released in the ARC Virtual Institute
The Art Research Center is pleased to announce that The World of the Takeuchi Dokei Collection (『竹内道敬文庫の世界』), a treasure trove of early modern Japanese music materials, has been released.
With the aim to digitize and publish one of the representative collections of the Kunitachi College of Music Library - the collection of Takeuchi Dokei - the Art Research Center has been collaborating with the library to release the official version of The World of Takeuchi Dokei and make it available on the ARC's Virtual Institute: https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/e/v_institute/.
The Takeuchi Dokei Collection is the world's largest collection of modern Japanese music, especially regarding shamisen music, with over 10,000 items in total, including nishiki-e (woodblock prints), music books, and banzuke (playbills).
While we had previously released the nishiki-e database in March 2019, we officially launch an online digital exhibition this time based on the Kunitachi College of Music 90th Anniversary Project: Takeuchi Dokei Collection Nishiki-e Picture Book. At the same time, the entire banzuke collection (over 5,600 items) with the focus on kabuki and joruri theater playbills will be made available to the public from our banzuke database.
Please feel free to use this as an online hub for your research on Japanese music: https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/lib/vm/kunitake/.
As we strive to continue with the digital archiving of music books to release them in the next fiscal year and beyond, please visit our website again in the future.
Furthermore, our digital exhibition is also accessible from the top page of the Kunitachi College of Music Library: https://www.lib.kunitachi.ac.jp/.