Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix Wins American Eagle Award

newslogo.jpgMay 31, 2010, Phoenix, Arizona – On Tuesday, May 25, the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) was honored with the National Music Council's 29th American Eagle Award at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City’s Times Square. MIM was presented this award for creating an innovative learning environment where people can experience cultural expressions from around the globe and understand how music is truly a shared and universal human experience. The other honorees for this year were Kenny Rogers, Suzanne Vega, Ann Ruckert, and John Mahlmann.

 

The National Music Council was founded in 1940 as a forum for the discussion of this country’s national music affairs and problems. The Council has almost 50 national music organizations, encompassing every important form of professional and commercial musical activity. Each year the Council presents its annual Leadership in Music Symposium, bringing together some of the nation’s musical creators, legislators, educators, and music industry professionals to discuss important issues in the music community and the country as a whole. The symposium is followed by the Council’s annual American Eagle Awards to honor individuals and institutions who have made comprehensive contributions to musical life in America. Recent honorees have included Dizzy Gillespie, Odetta, Isaac Stern and Carnegie Hall, Dave Brubeck, Van Cliburn, Benny Goodman, Max Roach, Lena Horne, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley, Betty Carter, Phil Ramone, the Marsalis family, Save the Music founder John Sykes, and Quincy Jones.

 

“MIM is privileged to be included on this list of highly respected honorees,” said President and Director Bill DeWalt, Ph.D. “The museum is founded on the conviction that music is something all humans share, a source of beauty and comfort in our daily lives, a means to give voice to our joy in times of celebration, and a powerful force that brings us all together.”

 

MIM celebrates music as all of these things—a sustaining human gift and wellspring of global culture. The museum invites people from every nation and walk of life to come and share in this common legacy, become amazed by the beauty and diversity of musical instruments from all across the globe, and be enriched by their sounds and the stories they have to tell. MIM has collected more than 10,000 musical instruments from every country in the world, and over 3,000 are on exhibit at a time. The museum is committed to preserving, protecting, and sharing this collection with future generations.

 

Museum guests enjoy a close encounter with the instruments themselves, enhanced by state-of-the art audio and video that bring to life the sounds and sights of these instruments as experienced in their cultures of origin. The collection includes the handiwork of anonymous artisans and such renowned makers as Heinrich Engelhardt Steinway and C.F. Martin. MIM displays instruments played by ordinary people alongside the personal instruments of musical celebrities such as John Lennon, Eddie Palmieri, Eric Clapton, King Sunny Adé, Carlos Santana, and Paul Simon. Live performances by internationally celebrated artists in MIM’s music theater give guests an opportunity to hear music from every corner of the globe in an intimate, comfortable environment with superb acoustics.

 

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For more information about MIM, please visit: www.themim.org.

 

For more information about the National Music Council, please visit:

http://www.musiccouncil.org/

 

Media contact:

Alan di Perna, Musical Instrument Museum

480-816-8168 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 


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