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IU'S MATHERS MUSEUM KICKS OFF 15TH ANNIVERSARY WITH 'WORLD MUSIC: THEMES AND VARIATIONS'
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new exhibit, "World Music: Themes and Variations," kicks off the 15th anniversary celebration for Indiana University's William Hammond Mathers Museum. The exhibit reflects one of the museum's greatest assets -- its ethnomusicology collection.
A special program is scheduled at the museum from 5:30 to 8 p.m. April 21 to mark the anniversary and the opening of the exhibit. It will feature a concert by Totu Tundu, a group which performs modern taarab music -- a song form of Swahili poetry from coastal East Africa.
The Mathers Museum began as the Indiana University Museum, first established in Maxwell Hall in 1963. In 1983, the institution moved to its present location and was renamed in honor of a son of the principal donor, Frank C. Mathers. Over the years the IU museum has grown to house over 22,000 artifacts and more than 40,000 photographic images used in research, exhibition and public programs.
The "World Music: Themes and Variations" exhibit will include 190 instruments from the museum's collection -- one of the largest in the United States. In addition to highlighting specific collections, museum staff members will also honor scholars and donors who made distinguished contributions, including former director Wesley R. Hurt, Ronald R. Smith, and Cecilia Wahl.
The exhibit explores the technological and physical aspects of creating instruments and making sound, as well as the political, religious, economic and social dimensions of music. For example, the political dimension of music is demonstrated by Croatian tamburitza ensembles, which feature five long-necked plucked lutes. The development of tamburitza ensembles was closely related to the development of nationalist political movements, and in immigrant Croatian communities, such as those in South Bend, Ind., the playing of tamburitza serves as a focus of ethnic identity.
The musical instruments will be displayed primarily by instrument type: aerophones, chordophones, membranophones and idiophones.
Aerophones are instruments that produce sound through vibrating air, and examples in the exhibit include flutes from Japan andAngola, pan-pipes from China and Papua New Guinea, whistles from Ireland and the United States, and trumpets from Tibet, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Haiti.
Chordophones are stringed instruments, and the exhibit features a harp from Ghana, zithers from Madagascar and Turkey, a lyre from Estonia, and lutes from China, Afghanistan, Croatia, Nepal and Ethiopia.
Membranophones use a vibrating skin as a sound-producing element, as found in drums from Thailand, Nigeria, Yugoslavia and Liberia.
Idiophones (or self-producing instruments) in the exhibit include rattles from Peru, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.
"Musical machines," such as a parlor organ and music box, are also featured in the exhibit.
IU's Mathers Museum is located at 416 N. Indiana Ave. in Bloomington, and its exhibit hall and museum store are open Tuesdays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.
For more information, or to scheduled guided group tours, call 812-855-6873, or visit the Mathers Museum.
(Jeff Austin, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0084 or 812-855-3911, jeaustin@indiana.edu)