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Category: Preservation

Medium close up photo of Liz, eyes upturned and hair pulled back neatly, blowing into a clear flute. The wall behind her is white, part of the Library's flute vault.

Fabulous Flutes

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Lizzo set the social media world afire last fall by playing, in concert, a short solo on a rare crystal flute that once belonged to President James Madison. The flute is one of the Library's most prized musical instruments and a showpiece of the collection of Dayton C. Miller, the famed physicist, astronomer and major flute aficionado. The collection, preserved in a vault at the Library, is not just the world’s largest of flute-related material, it is perhaps the largest collection on a single music subject ever assembled — and it’s what drew Lizzo to the Library in the first place.