Laurence Libin

Laurence Elliot Libin, born in Chicago in 1944, is an American organologist and curator whose work centres on the study of musical instruments, both in their history and construction and in their iconography and in the functioning of the collections that house them.

He trained at Northwestern University in Evanston, where he took the BMus in 1966, and then at King's College, University of London, where he completed the MMus in 1968 under Thurston Dart. On returning to the United States, he undertook his doctorate at the University of Chicago between 1968 and 1971, with Howard Mayer Brown and Edward Lowinsky as his supervisors.

In 1973 he was appointed curator of musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a post he combined with teaching: he taught at Ramapo College of New Jersey between 1972 and 1973 and, from 1974 until 1994, was a professor at Columbia University, the City College of New York and New York University. In 1999 he became the museum's research curator.

His bibliography includes studies of violins by Stradivari and Amati held by the museum, works on organs, pianos and harpsichords, such as his studies of John Huber and of folding harpsichords, as well as catalogues of the Metropolitan's collection. His publications also include unknown sources for Handel located in Chicago and studies on the conservation of bowed string instruments.

His legacy lies in the contribution he has made to the documentation and conservation of historical instruments, as well as in his role in promoting organology within the American museum sphere.