In the MMD, 971213, Larry Greenfield asked about the Schubert Club.
In brief, the Club was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1882 with
the mission to enhance the performance arts.  They do this through
educational seminars and school programs, through their performing arts
series open to the public (they have paid concerts and they provide
free concerts on a weekly basis),house publications, with their CD
recordings, and through their displays and exhibits.

The Club has been almost exclusively devoted to keyboard instruments
since its inception and has the good fortune to own several pianos that
were played by some of the virtuosos of the past, including Brahms and
Bach.  They also have a collection of magnificent pianos crafted to be
reproductions of some of the great pianos in history.  Their exhibit of
pianos is one of the highlights of their exhibit.

The connection of the Club to mechanical music is that the Club
inherited the entire collection of Bill Kugler, a local legend in
collecting circles.  Kugler collected mech. music for over 60 years and
bequeathed his collection to the Schubert Club in 1989.  While few of
the instruments were in working condition, Bill was responsible in the
Minnesota area for introducing more people to mechanical music than
anyone before or since.  The Kugler collection was known worldwide for
its rare and almost unheard of instruments that were manually played;
these included pre-Biblical instruments.

Because Schubert was and is not interested in mechanical music
instruments, they sold almost everything from the Kugler collection and
invested in more of the instruments they prefer to feature.  A small
collection of about 12 instruments is on permanent display at the
Landmark Center.  Most of them work, most of them need work.

The Club is housed in the Landmark Center, a Victorian-era federal
courthouse that was impeccably restored in 1970 and has earned many
awards for its restoration and preservation efforts.  MBSI members who
attended the 1987 annual meeting in St. Paul may remember the castle-
like building on the edge of Rice Park, where we held a two-day organ
rally.

'Nuff said.

Angelo Rulli
St. Paul, MN