Christina Linsenmeyer

Christina Linsenmeyer is Associate Curator of the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments at Yale University. Her research focuses on the historiography of Stradivari and the violinmaking canon. She has explored the intersections of material culture, aesthetics, and socio-political ideologies to understand historical and current imitative practices, values, and constructs of beauty.

Her edited volume European, British, and American Musical Instrument Collectors, 1850–1940 is forthcoming from Routledge (2025). Recent publications include ‘Liberté, Egalité, and Lutherie: Fetishizing Stradivarius in the context of French nationalism’ in: Confronting the National in the Musical Past (Kelly, Mantere and Scott, eds. Routledge, 2018) and ‘Sibire’s aesthetic Sensibility: Stradivarius, the classical Ideal and a new noble purpose’, in: Wooden Musical Instruments: Different Forms of Knowledge. 2018 (WoodMusICK [WOODen MUSical Instrument Conservation and Knowledge], Pérez & Marconi, eds. COST Action FP1302, EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020.)

Christina is 2022–2025 Chair of the ICOM (International Council of Museums) – International Committee for Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music (CIMCIM). Her leadership prioritizes three strategic pillars: DEIA, Sustainability, and Provenance. In this role, she is committed to fostering ethical music museums globally, nationally, and locally, with the understanding that music museums are agents of change.

Christina holds a PhD in Musicology from Washington University in St. Louis and a Diploma in Violin Making from North Bennet Street School, Boston. Prior to coming to Yale, she was a Researcher at University of Arts Helsinki – her postdoctoral project ‘The Beautiful Past: Rethinking Stradivari Violins in the Aesthetics of European Neoclassicism (c. 1760-1814)’ was funded by the Academy of Finland. Previously, she was a founding curator and interim Head of Curatorial Affairs at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

Photo credit: Bob Handelman