experiences
musical instrument museum
Rising from the desert terrain of north Phoenix, the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is a significant addition to the worldwide community of museums devoted to music making and musical culture. The MIM collection is both vast and global in scope, with some 13,000 instruments from every country in the world, housed in a 190,000 square foot facility, situated on 20 acres of land. The building also contains a 299-seat concert hall, recording studio, conservation lab, family center, restaurant, café, and museum store.
MIM’s permanent collection, occupying approximately 75,000 feet of exhibit space, is organized into five Geo-Galleries representing Europe, the United States and Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. State-of-the-art audio and video technology creates an immersive, shared museum experience, enabling guests to both see and hear the instruments on exhibit being played within their cultural contexts. A separate hands-on Experience Gallery affords guests an interactive opportunity to play actual instruments similar to those on exhibit. The MIM Artist Gallery exhibits instruments associated with famous players and makers, including John Lennon, Eric Clapton, King Sunny Adé, Paul Simon, Leonard Bernstein, Eddie Palmieri, the Jonas Brothers, George Benson, and Simon Shaheen.