The Song Celebration Museum tells of the tradition of Estonian song festivals and the role Tartu played in their emergence. The museum’s permanent exhibition, entitled ‘Carry Your Own Tune’, reveals the different facets of the song festival tradition and how it has changed over the years. Estonian theatre found its beginnings alongside song festivals during the period of the National Awakening. The theatre-themed permanent exhibition ‘Raise the curtain! Vanemuine Theatre 150’ opened in 2020. It takes you on the journey of Estonia’s oldest theatre from its humble beginnings right up to the present day.

The song festivals, singing, dancing and acting are all included in the school trip and workshop programmes.

The history of the building

The museum is located in the former headquarters of the Vanemuine Cultural Society on Jaama Street in the Ülejõe district. This neoclassical building, constructed in the first half of the 19th century, is a cultural monument of great importance to Estonia.

The building was home to the Vanemuine Cultural Society, the founders of the song festival tradition, from 1870-1903. It was also home to other organisations that made significant contributions to the development of Estonian culture: the Estonian Agricultural Society of Tartu, the Society of Estonian Literati and the Estonian Students’ Society.

A performance of revered Estonian writer Lydia Koidula’s play The Cousin from Saaremaa here on Midsummer’s Day in 1870 gave birth to Estonian theatre. The first song festivals organised by the Vanemuine Cultural Society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were originally held in the gardens surrounding the building, some attracting as many as 10,000 people.

In 1907 the building was purchased by the Estonian Kindergarten Society of Tartu and the first Estonian kindergarten took up residence of the site. It continued to operate in the building for over 80 years – all the way through to 1988. Thereupon the building found use once more as a theatre, housing the Tartu Children’s Theatre, Tartu Theatre Lab and Tartu Emajõgi Summer Theatre.

The Song Celebration Museum was opened on 19 October 2007.