Councilwoman Peggy Neely
City Sun Times April 2009
World-class Musical Instrument Museum Celebrates Topping Off
Phoenix soon will be home to the world’s first global musical instrument museum, featuring a unique, interactive experience that music aficionados and visitors of all ages will find fascinating.
Located on the corner of Tatum and Mayo boulevards, the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) held its topping off ceremony last month. I had the pleasure of attending the celebration, along with Mayor Phil Gordon, museum executives and nearly 150 community members. It marked exciting progress in the building’s construction process since its groundbreaking in February 2008.
The $100 million project is scheduled to be completed in April 2010 and will showcase musical instruments from nearly 200 countries, celebrating both the differences and similarities of the world’s single universal language—music.
Exhibits will feature state-of-the-art technology, including wireless audio “hot spots” streaming the sounds of various musical instruments throughout the museum and flat-panel monitors playing high-resolution video of instrumental performances. The museum will offer access to audio and visual materials from existing music collections held by various institutions, record labels and film studios, in addition to almost 350 displays featuring as many 5,000 different indigenous and folk instruments.
MIM will be led by Bill DeWalt, the museum’s first president and director, who was most recently the director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. MIM expects up to 500,000 visitors annually, drawing guests from the city, state and region to northeast Phoenix.
I am truly excited about the new gem we will anchor in District 2—a museum unlike any other existing facility. Filling a need that has gone unmet until now, the world-class establishment will have a positive economic impact for our city and region at a time when it is especially needed.
Phoenix Councilwoman Peggy Neely represents District 2, which includes most of northeast Phoenix. She can be reached at 602-262-7445 or through e-mail at council.district.2@phoenix.gov.