Visiting our museum
Opening Hours:
Monday – Closed
Tuesday – 10:00 – 17:00 – Last entry at 16:30
Wednesday – 10:00 – 17:00 – Last entry at 16:30
Thursday -10:00 – 17:00 – Last entry at 16:30
Friday – 10:00 – 17:00 – Last entry at 16:30
Saturday – 10:00 – 17:00 – Last entry at 16:30
Sunday – Closed
2025 Weekly Tours
January Tour Dates
Friday 24th January | 14:00 | FREE | Tickets via Eventbrite from 20th December
Join Dona to learn all about our early keyboard collection.
Tuesday 28th January | 14:00 | FREE | Tickets via Eventbrite from 20th December
Join Katya for a tour highlighting the many animals in our collection.
Women’s History Month 2025
Join us this Women’s History Month for a range of events celebrating women in music!
Concert: A Celebration of Women in Music | Saturday 8th March 2025 | 19:00-21:00 | £0/6/9 | Tickets via Eventbrite from 8th January 2025
Join us this International Women’s Day for an evening of celebration and music!
With performances from:
Ellie Beaton: Award-winning Folk Singer and Pianist.
Some Strange Harmony: Harmonium, piano, violin, & vocals duo. Folk-classical originals and re-imaginings based on melodies from around the world.
Lucia Capellaro: UK-based cellist, baroque cellist, and gamba player, who specialises in historical and contemporary performance.
Talk: Topic TBC | Thursday 6th March 2025 | 18:00-19:00 | Pay What You Can | Tickets via Eventbrite from 8th January 2025
Watch this space for details of this year’s Women’s History Month lecture!
Tours: The Hidden Women of St Cecilia’s Hall | Thursday 6th March & Saturday 8th March 2025 | 14:00-15:00 | Pay What You Can | Tickets via Eventbrite from the 8th of January 2025
Join us this Women’s History Month for two curator-led tours of the museum focussing on the hidden women behind some of the instruments in our collection. Dr Jenny Nex explores and examines the roles, lives and stories behind the women who were instrumental in the making, selling and collecting of some of the instruments in the collection.
Concerts at St Cecilia’s Hall
Ethan Ward Quiet Concerts
Timorous Beasties | Saturday 25th January 2025 | 15:00-16:00 | FREE | Tickets available via Eventbrite from 1st December 2024
Tony George & Victoria Lopez play the serpent, ophicleide & bass horn with bassoon.
The Georgian Concert Society 2024-2025
Jonathan Manson: Bach Cello Suites Nos 1, 2 & 3 | Saturday 18th January 2025 | 16:30 | £10/23/25 | Tickets via the Queens Hall
Edinburgh-born cellist Jonathan Manson frequently appears as a principal and continuo player with leading early music groups including the Dunedin Consort. He plays the first three of Bach’s six cello suites, composed in the early 1720s while the composer worked at Cöthen. Among the earliest works for solo cello, they exploit the contrapuntal possibilities of the instrument in dazzling sets of dances, preceded by arpeggiated preludes.
Baroque Music Festival 2025
April’s Follies: Concert with Héloïse Bernard, Annemarie Klein and Jan Waterfield | Tuesday 1st April 2025 | 19:00 | £12/15 | Tickets via Institut Français
If Folly is the opposite of Reason, then musicians throughout the ages have embraced this side of human behaviour and celebrated it through songs, dances and musical variations and more. Follies can be pleasant, painful and everything in-between.
This programme celebrates some of these musical depictions; the intense desires of the French chansons, the Mad songs of Restoration England, the enduring tune of ‘La Follia’ and all extremes of emotion and behaviour in music.
Heloïse Bernard, Annemarie Klein and Jan Waterfield (voice, recorders and harpsichord) will perform major works by Bernier, Rameau, Couperin, De Bailly, Janequin, de Rore, Purcell, Handel, Eccles and others.
Mujie Yan plays Handel and Rameau | Thursday 24th April 2025 | 19:00 | £12/15 | Tickets via Institut Français
For this concert at St Cecilia’s Hall, Mujie Yan will guide us through a captivating harpsichord programme that showcases the instrument’s versatility, expressiveness, and timeless elegance. She will performs major works by Froberger, Rameau, Duphly, Martinů and Handel.
Versatile both as soloist and chamber musician, Mujie Yan is a Chinese pianist and harpsichordist currently based in Glasgow and Budapest, specialising in Janáček and Martinů’s keyboard and chamber music.
Maxim Emelyanychev plays Mozart | Saturday 10th May 2025 | 19:00 | £12/15 | Tickets via Institut Français
Join Maxim Emelyanychev for a very special evening of Mozart celebration and final concert of the Baroque Music Festival. The passionate Russian conductor, pianist and harpsichordist will present captivating renditions from the world of Mozart played on the fortepiano, harpsichord and modern piano. The Scotsman describes Emelyanychev’s Mozart performances as ‘a near-miracle of balance and energy, sounds carefully layered […] to make Mozart’s harmonies glow vividly’.
St Cecilia’s Informal Talk Series 2025
LOOT: Curating Empire at the New Perth Museum | Thursday 27th February 2025 | 18:00-19:00 | Pay What You Can | Tickets on sale from December 27th
Join JP Reid, Exhibitions and Interpretation Manager for Culture Perth & Kinross, for the first of our 2025 informal talks.
Although now on display in a new museum, the objects at Perth Museum form amongst the oldest public collections in the UK. Founded in 1784, the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society collected material from across the world. Its collection profile evolved in tandem with British imperial expansion through the late 18th and 19th centuries. This talk explores a group of musical instruments collected by the society, examining their stories and the circumstances of their ‘acquisition.’ From present-day Myanmar and Iran, to the west coast of Canada and Aotearoa, these instruments reflect the cultural practises of those communities who made and used them, as well as the exercise of imperial dominance, and resulting devaluing and erasure of those cultural practises.
The 7-year development of Perth Museum’s World Cultures Gallery, which brought together curators, artists and communities from Vancouver to Wellington sits alongside a broader reassessment of how the museum can begin to address imperial legacies and persistent abuses of power.
Workshops and Classes
Watch this space!
Family Activities
Lunar New Year Family Trail | 29th January – 8th February 2025 | FREE | Tickets available from 29th December 2024 via Eventbrite
Join us this Lunar New Year for a free, fun Lunar New Year-themed family trail!
Following the usual route around the museum, see if you can spot Cecilia the dragon’s 8 eggs hidden throughout the galleries and answer each of her music-related questions to win a Lunar New Year-themed sticker at the end!
Lunar New Year Family Craft Afternoons | 1st and 8th of February | 12:00-16:00 | FREE | Tickets available via Eventbrite
Join us this Lunar New Year for two free craft afternoons. Design a paper chain snake and make your own Angpow Fishes! All materials provided!
Sessions run for one hour each, three times per day. This event is strictly ticketed only. Walk-ins will only be accepted if ticket holders drop out on the day.
Family Programme
Families and children of all ages are always welcome at St Cecilia’s Hall. Come and have fun together while learning about the history of musical instruments.
Our children’s tour can help introduce the instruments to young children while our hands-on interactive ‘discover drawers’ allow visitors both young and old the opportunity to uncover how instruments work.
Children can explore the museum with our Discovery Trail – ask for it at the front desk when you arrive!.
We run a wide range of practical, hands-on workshops, led by musical instrument specialists throughout the year. Look at the Upcoming Events section below to see when the next activity is taking place or contact SCHevents@ed.ac.uk for more information.
In addition, tours or other activities can be arranged to cater for special interests and a varied needs. Please contact SCHgroupvisits@ed.ac.uk for more information.
Venue Hire
St Cecilia’s Hall, located off the iconic Royal Mile in Edinburgh’s Old Town provides contemporary facilities and comfort, within the stunning 1763 heritage building, uniquely home to a world class collection of musical instruments.
We welcome bookings for events that support the museum’s core purpose as a concert hall for live music, and museum of music and musical instruments.
We have two separate spaces available for hire to suit a range of events / activities and budgets:
The Sypert Concert Room (first floor) – max capacity 180 (this number includes all staffing/performers/speakers etc).
The Laigh Hall* (ground floor) – for receptions/refreshments max capacity 80.
* Note that the Laigh Hall itself is divided in 2 by a glass wall creating 2 spaces, both these spaces comprise the Laigh Hall.
Please note absolutely no catering is permitted in the Sypert Concert Room however refreshments can be served in the ground floor Laigh Hall and Historic Foyer. Catering must be arranged separately by the client as St Cecilia’s does not provide this service.
If you would like to enquire about venue hire at St. Cecilia’s full details and prices are available here or email us for more details: SCHEvents@ed.ac.uk