The lovely town of Ponce has a variety of charming museums which you can combine into a day of culture. You can start off with the impressive Ponce Museum of Art, continue to visit the El Museo Castillo Serralles and then head downtown for a walking tour of small specialty museums. First up – the Ponce Museum of Music.
I do believe the people at the museum were surprised to see me and they seemed a bit unprepared for visitors. Yet, a short wait and someone came along to give me a personal guided tour of the small museum, highlighting the history behind the local folks and the various instruments.
Here’s an intro from Wikipedia :
The Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña (English: Museum of Puerto Rican Music) is a museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that showcases the development of Puerto Rican music, with displays of Taíno, Spanish, and African musical instruments that were played in the romantic danza genre, the favorite music of 19th-century Puerto Rican society, as well as the more African-inspired bomba and plena styles. Also on view are memorabilia of composers and performers. The Museum traces the rich musical history of the Puerto Rico through memorabilia of famous musicians and displays of the musical instruments associated with the three genres of music that originated in this Caribbean island.
The building that houses the museum is known as Casa Serrallés, and it was the former downtown residence (as opposed to his hilltop Castillo Serralles structure) of Juan Eugenio Serralles and his family, owners of Destilería Serrallés and makers of the Don Q rum.
As you can see, the Serrales were quite dominant in town and so the Castillo Serralles and this museum were both former ‘castles’ owned by the rum manufacturing family.
What’s to see?
Some weird local instruments…
A very cool collection of decorated guitar-looking instruments…
Made by this guy …
A few folk artifacts…
All in all, together with the guided tour, a very pleasant and interesting hour. IMHO, just the right time to spend in a museum, any museum 🙂