Mexican Music Museum Rafael Tovar y de Teresa

<b>1.Experiencia Mexicana:</b> The museum's first room introduces visitors to the wonderful world of pre-Hispanic and mestiza music. This space showcases an intriguing ethnographic collection of percussion, wind and string instruments (a product of mestizaje); used mainly in ceremonies or rituals. <br> <b>2. Música Virreinal:</b> The room presents the main cities of New Spain and some elements of colonial architecture: the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City and Guanajuato, the Puebla city plan, and documents related to Puebla's founding. It also shows images of the Plaza de Santo Domingo and the Aduana in Mexico City, and a map of Tenochtitlán. It also features essential urban planning and architecture elements from the Virreinal period, which completely changed the conception and structure of the cities of New Spain, paving the way for new settlements like Puebla. <br> <b>3. Villancicos:</b> In this room you can view a nativity scene representing Mexican Christmas crafted by a Puebla artisan and a painting titled El niño Jesús con ángeles músicos by Horacio Correa from the 17th century. A sample of New Spain art. In the room you will find images of organs, altarpieces and other elements from the following cathedrals: <br> <ul> <li>Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Mexico City.</li> <li>Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Oaxaca.</li> <li>Cathedral Basilica of Nuestra Señora de la Inmaculada Concepción de Puebla.</li> </ul> <br> <b>4. Gloria in Excelsis Deo:</b> This hall bears the name of an ancient hymn with which the Church glorifies God the Father, Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Glory to God in heaven). <br> <b>5. Nacimiento de una Nación:</b> This room also traces the evolution of our country’s flags—from the Iturbide Trigarante flag to the 1968 flag, passing through those of Maximiliano, Benito Juárez, Porfirio Díaz and Venustiano Carranza. <br> <b>6. México Romántico:</b> In this hall you can watch scenes from films such as Bugambilia (set in 19th-century Guanajuato) and México Lindo y Querido, films that narrate moments of Mexican history through musical representations; featuring performances by Lola Beltrán, Pedro Vargas, and others. The hall also showcases architectural models of theaters built at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including the Teatro Juárez in Guanajuato. It also presents a feature about Requiem, a Catholic mass offering prayers for the dead. <br> <b>7. Arte y Color:</b> On the hall screens you can see a sample of folk dance, its nationalist expression, and phonograph devices such as gramophones and a Magnatone; a reproduction of Rufino Tamayo’s mural Dualidad, located at the National Museum of Anthropology and History, which represents the pre-Hispanic worldview and Mexican nationalism through the conflict between Quetzalcóatl (the plumed serpent) and Tezcatlipoca the Jaguar. In the center is a marimba crafted by Huichol artisans from Jalisco. <br> <b>8. La Ópera Mexicana:</b> This shows an image of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, a space that has witnessed thousands of performances over the years. Renowned Mexican and global artists have graced the Palacio’s stage—the country’s most important venue and globally recognized. <br> <b>9. Bésame Mucho:</b> In this hall you see the era where cinema and music were characterized by exalting Mexican culture, daily life, traditions, and folklore. From that era many artists and interpreters of Mexican song emerged. <br> <b>10. Nuevos Horizontes:</b> We enter a new phase of Mexican composers; since 1950 there has been a shift in Mexican music as many Mexican authors began to reach global audiences. In this space there are three screens with an interactive game featuring geometric shapes you must catch; in this game called Paint with Colors, painting creates sounds.