For musicians & music-lovers
Michaelstein Museum Experience
“Experience” is the perfect word to describe the Michaelstein Museum. This is not a place for passive onlookers: everyone actively joins in – with all their senses! The main focus of the exhibition, the topic of music, comes as no surprise considering that the old abbey houses the famous Saxony-Anhalt Music Academy.
Among other things, the collection of more than 700 historical instruments is explicitly meant to be touched and experimented with. The multimedia sound and light installation “KlangZeitRaum” transports you to the world of baroque music, while the “music salon” hosts famous guests for talks and melodies. While all this is going on, younger visitors solve the secret of music with a lovable cat called Michel. In the music pavilion near the abbey barn is the breathtaking showpiece of the museum: a faithful reproduction of Salomon de Caus’s 17th-century water organ, driven by a water wheel. When it is turned on at one of the demonstration times, the water wheels simultaneously play an organ and set in motion the wooden sculpture of the dolphin-riding nymph Galatea.
You can enjoy these musical attractions individually or on a Dreiklang (“triad”) ticket with the other two parts of the museum: the abbey history and monastic gardens. What was life like for the monks here? How did they live off their impressive vegetable and herb garden, and use it to cure disease? Find all the answers on the corresponding guided tour.
The “Zum Weissen Mönch” (White Monk) inn sees to the culinary needs of 21st-century visitors.
Michaelstein Abbey | Music academy and museum
- Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt
- Michaelstein 15
- 38889 Blankenburg | Harz
- T: +49 3944 9030-0
- F: +49 3944 9030-30
- kloster-michaelstein@kulturstiftung-st.de
- www.kloster-michaelstein.de
Includes
Demonstration of the music machine (about 30 minutes)
Three-part Dreiklang (“triad”) monastery tour (history, garden and music)
A serving of coffee and cake
Groups
min. 10, max. 30 people (inc. 1 tour guide / bus driver free of charge)
Season
Exhibitions: All year round
Demonstration of the music machine:
only in frost-free months (April–Oct)!
In the winter months, screens and a media display give an impression of how the organ operates.
Price & time
3 hours
6 euros admission per person plus 80 euros per group for the guided tour
Please book catering separately at the inn and hotel “Zum Weissen Mönch”.
