What is the MIM?
Interview with Kathleen R. Wiens, PhD
Curator for Europe. Musical Instrument Museum
Jeannine: Please give our readers a brief history of MIM?
Dr. Wiens: The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) was founded by Robert J. Ulrich, former CEO and chairman emeritus of Target Corporation. Ulrich is an avid collector of African art and a world art enthusiast. He decided to create MIM after he and his friend, Marc Felix, visited the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels, Belgium. Their visionz was to create a museum that represented musical instruments from every country in the world and to use state-of-the-art audiovisual technology to show musical instruments being played in their original cultural context. MIM’s collection was assembled by a team of expert curators, with consultation from distinguished ethnomusicologists, organologists and other field experts. The bulk of the collection is highlighted in Geographical Galleries that focus on five major global regions. The museum opened its doors to great acclaim on April 24, 2010.
Jeannine: How did MIM gain the title, The World’s Only Global Musical Instrument Museum?
Dr. Wiens: MIM is the only musical instrument museum that represents more than 200 countries and territories within its collection. Other musical instrument museums primarily focus on Western instruments, with much less attention paid to those from other areas of the world. MIM’s experience also brings these instruments to life through technology that enables visitors to see and hear these instruments in their original cultural settings, like in no other museum in the world.
Jeannine: How is MIM different than other musical instrument museums?
Dr. Wiens: MIM’s mandate is to introduce visitors to the instruments as material objects, but more importantly to present the social context of instruments and of sound. Through a global perspective on comparative and contrasting musics and contexts, MIM helps visitors gain perspective on familiar and unfamiliar music, and to recognize musical connections between different communities and regions of the world. There are other music museums that explore the social dimensions of music performance, however they often focus on music of a specific genre (rock music, for example) or from a specific tradition (European classical music being the most typical). Through its broad geographical scope, MIM endeavors to give a truly global perspective.
Jeannine: Many of our readers are classical keyboard players. Which section of the museum would appeal most to these musicians?
Dr. Wiens: We have several objects that may be of interest to the classical keyboardist. One gallery features a “visible” organ made by Michael Rathke of Indiana. The single manual organ was constructed using clear materials around the pipes and bellows, allowing visitors to see the bellows at work when the organ is played.
For harpsichordists, we will soon be welcoming a Frank Hubbard Rucker-style double manual harpsichord into the permanent collection. This particular instrument was one of the last harpsichords built by Hubbard himself, and so it tells an important story of revivalist methodology, but also of the important role played by USA-based instrument makers in contemporary early music performance.
With regards to pianos, we represent a departure from traditional historic keyboard collections. Visitors will see a few pieces typical of traditional keyboard collections: a Broadwood square, an 1850 Chickering grand and a Jean-Henri Pape grand that uses his experimental downward-striking hammer action.
Something that we do which is somewhat untraditional is in our presentation of the Steinway legacy of piano-making. As your readers may know, Steinway’s meticulous methodology is an important part of why they produce the quality of instrument that they do. A special display is dedicated to Steinway’s method of construction, so visitors can envision the piano-making process from start to finish. We also have Steinways’s 1836 “kitchen piano,” an early grand piano built by Heinrich Engelhardt Steinweg (built in his kitchen, hence the title). This is on loan to us from Steinway & Sons.
Finally, one of our “hands on” instruments is a Steinway model B that sits in El Rio, the central corridor of the museum. Visitors are welcome to play this instrument, so we might hear anything from “chopsticks” to Chopin. Sometimes people from the community stop by with sheet music and play for their own enjoyment (and ours, of course). That piano provides yet another opportunity for our visitors to become a part of the museum experience.
Jeannine: Please describe the Experience Gallery and what a person might expect in this section of the museum.
Dr. Wiens: The Experience Gallery is a distinctive component of the museum where guests of all ages can play, touch and hear a changing array of instruments from many different cultures. Guests can bang a gong, strum a Burmese harp and play unique instruments from all corners of the world.
Jeannine: Earlier this year, MIM was listed in USA Today’s “20 Best Museums for Families Across the USA”. For what family-friendly features was the museum recognized?
Dr. Wiens: MIM has a number of family-friendly features for its guests. First and foremost, the Experience Gallery provides an opportunity for guests of all ages to make music of their own.
There is also a designated area, the Family Center, which offers books, toys and games for MIM’s youngest guests, as well as a private nursing room. It is also important to note that the technology that makes MIM’s experience so unique is also very kid-friendly. Since guests do not need to press any buttons to hear the music at a given exhibit, parents don’t have to worry that their children are hearing the correct music at the correct time.
MIM also hosts a number of events that are created specifically for families. Family Day programs provide exciting opportunities for the whole family to celebrate music, instruments and cultures from around the world. Each themed Family Day features music by and for children, fun and educational programs for all ages and unique hands-on activities.
Lastly, “MIMKids” classes (Mini Music Makers and Musical Adventure Series) are available on a weekly basis and offer a wide variety of musical classes for kids and their parents. Mini Music Makers is an early childhood music and movement course for ages 0-5 that develops motor, pre-language and musical skills while exploring music from around the globe. The Musical Adventure Series is for kids ages 6-10 and allows participants to explore different cultures while making music, creating musical instruments and touring the museum galleries.
Jeannine: Please describe for our readers, your favorite section of the museum and why it is a “must-not- be-missed” feature.
Dr. Wiens: My favorite section of the museum is the Artist Gallery, where we feature instruments from the personal collection of renowned pop, rock, classical and folk musicians from around the world. A few of my personal favorites include objects from the collections of Carter and Cash family members, a guitar from John Denver’s personal collection and the Vuillaume cello owned by Pablo Cassals. What stands out to me about these instruments is not their connection to a famous musician, but that they connect our visitors with a music that is meaningful to them on a personal level.
Jeannine: Ready, set, let's travel! The Musical Instrument Museum is located at 4725 East May Blvd. in Phoenix, Arizona. You can learn more by visiting their website at mim.org.
Kathleen Wiens was raised in a family of musicians. She went on to study oboe performance at McGill University in Montreal and to complete her MA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, both in Canada. She finished her PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to her training as an orchestral oboist, Wiens has studied double-reed instruments from many traditions. Her varied pursuits have included facilitating the digitization of rare recordings of Jewish singers from the Balkans and singing in and leading folkloric ensembles that perform music from across southeastern Europe.
While Wiens’s expertise and long-term fieldwork focus on music in Croatia and Serbia, her broader interests span Europe—from Portuguese fado to Alpine yodeling, from British bhangra to Bosnian sevdah, and from J. S. Bach to Sephardic Jewish singers (this last was the topic of her doctoral dissertation). Her travels continually lead her to the many corners, communities, and musics of Europe.
Interview with Kathleen R. Wiens, PhD
Curator for Europe. Musical Instrument Museum
Jeannine: Please give our readers a brief history of MIM?
Dr. Wiens: The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) was founded by Robert J. Ulrich, former CEO and chairman emeritus of Target Corporation. Ulrich is an avid collector of African art and a world art enthusiast. He decided to create MIM after he and his friend, Marc Felix, visited the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels, Belgium. Their visionz was to create a museum that represented musical instruments from every country in the world and to use state-of-the-art audiovisual technology to show musical instruments being played in their original cultural context. MIM’s collection was assembled by a team of expert curators, with consultation from distinguished ethnomusicologists, organologists and other field experts. The bulk of the collection is highlighted in Geographical Galleries that focus on five major global regions. The museum opened its doors to great acclaim on April 24, 2010.
Jeannine: How did MIM gain the title, The World’s Only Global Musical Instrument Museum?
Dr. Wiens: MIM is the only musical instrument museum that represents more than 200 countries and territories within its collection. Other musical instrument museums primarily focus on Western instruments, with much less attention paid to those from other areas of the world. MIM’s experience also brings these instruments to life through technology that enables visitors to see and hear these instruments in their original cultural settings, like in no other museum in the world.
Jeannine: How is MIM different than other musical instrument museums?
Dr. Wiens: MIM’s mandate is to introduce visitors to the instruments as material objects, but more importantly to present the social context of instruments and of sound. Through a global perspective on comparative and contrasting musics and contexts, MIM helps visitors gain perspective on familiar and unfamiliar music, and to recognize musical connections between different communities and regions of the world. There are other music museums that explore the social dimensions of music performance, however they often focus on music of a specific genre (rock music, for example) or from a specific tradition (European classical music being the most typical). Through its broad geographical scope, MIM endeavors to give a truly global perspective.
Jeannine: Many of our readers are classical keyboard players. Which section of the museum would appeal most to these musicians?
Dr. Wiens: We have several objects that may be of interest to the classical keyboardist. One gallery features a “visible” organ made by Michael Rathke of Indiana. The single manual organ was constructed using clear materials around the pipes and bellows, allowing visitors to see the bellows at work when the organ is played.
For harpsichordists, we will soon be welcoming a Frank Hubbard Rucker-style double manual harpsichord into the permanent collection. This particular instrument was one of the last harpsichords built by Hubbard himself, and so it tells an important story of revivalist methodology, but also of the important role played by USA-based instrument makers in contemporary early music performance.
With regards to pianos, we represent a departure from traditional historic keyboard collections. Visitors will see a few pieces typical of traditional keyboard collections: a Broadwood square, an 1850 Chickering grand and a Jean-Henri Pape grand that uses his experimental downward-striking hammer action.
Something that we do which is somewhat untraditional is in our presentation of the Steinway legacy of piano-making. As your readers may know, Steinway’s meticulous methodology is an important part of why they produce the quality of instrument that they do. A special display is dedicated to Steinway’s method of construction, so visitors can envision the piano-making process from start to finish. We also have Steinways’s 1836 “kitchen piano,” an early grand piano built by Heinrich Engelhardt Steinweg (built in his kitchen, hence the title). This is on loan to us from Steinway & Sons.
Finally, one of our “hands on” instruments is a Steinway model B that sits in El Rio, the central corridor of the museum. Visitors are welcome to play this instrument, so we might hear anything from “chopsticks” to Chopin. Sometimes people from the community stop by with sheet music and play for their own enjoyment (and ours, of course). That piano provides yet another opportunity for our visitors to become a part of the museum experience.
Jeannine: Please describe the Experience Gallery and what a person might expect in this section of the museum.
Dr. Wiens: The Experience Gallery is a distinctive component of the museum where guests of all ages can play, touch and hear a changing array of instruments from many different cultures. Guests can bang a gong, strum a Burmese harp and play unique instruments from all corners of the world.
Jeannine: Earlier this year, MIM was listed in USA Today’s “20 Best Museums for Families Across the USA”. For what family-friendly features was the museum recognized?
Dr. Wiens: MIM has a number of family-friendly features for its guests. First and foremost, the Experience Gallery provides an opportunity for guests of all ages to make music of their own.
There is also a designated area, the Family Center, which offers books, toys and games for MIM’s youngest guests, as well as a private nursing room. It is also important to note that the technology that makes MIM’s experience so unique is also very kid-friendly. Since guests do not need to press any buttons to hear the music at a given exhibit, parents don’t have to worry that their children are hearing the correct music at the correct time.
MIM also hosts a number of events that are created specifically for families. Family Day programs provide exciting opportunities for the whole family to celebrate music, instruments and cultures from around the world. Each themed Family Day features music by and for children, fun and educational programs for all ages and unique hands-on activities.
Lastly, “MIMKids” classes (Mini Music Makers and Musical Adventure Series) are available on a weekly basis and offer a wide variety of musical classes for kids and their parents. Mini Music Makers is an early childhood music and movement course for ages 0-5 that develops motor, pre-language and musical skills while exploring music from around the globe. The Musical Adventure Series is for kids ages 6-10 and allows participants to explore different cultures while making music, creating musical instruments and touring the museum galleries.
Jeannine: Please describe for our readers, your favorite section of the museum and why it is a “must-not- be-missed” feature.
Dr. Wiens: My favorite section of the museum is the Artist Gallery, where we feature instruments from the personal collection of renowned pop, rock, classical and folk musicians from around the world. A few of my personal favorites include objects from the collections of Carter and Cash family members, a guitar from John Denver’s personal collection and the Vuillaume cello owned by Pablo Cassals. What stands out to me about these instruments is not their connection to a famous musician, but that they connect our visitors with a music that is meaningful to them on a personal level.
Jeannine: Ready, set, let's travel! The Musical Instrument Museum is located at 4725 East May Blvd. in Phoenix, Arizona. You can learn more by visiting their website at mim.org.
Kathleen Wiens was raised in a family of musicians. She went on to study oboe performance at McGill University in Montreal and to complete her MA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, both in Canada. She finished her PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to her training as an orchestral oboist, Wiens has studied double-reed instruments from many traditions. Her varied pursuits have included facilitating the digitization of rare recordings of Jewish singers from the Balkans and singing in and leading folkloric ensembles that perform music from across southeastern Europe.
While Wiens’s expertise and long-term fieldwork focus on music in Croatia and Serbia, her broader interests span Europe—from Portuguese fado to Alpine yodeling, from British bhangra to Bosnian sevdah, and from J. S. Bach to Sephardic Jewish singers (this last was the topic of her doctoral dissertation). Her travels continually lead her to the many corners, communities, and musics of Europe.