The Museum presents the collection of about 1200 Greek popular musical instruments from the 18th c. to the present day, the fruit of a half century of research and study by the late musicologist Fivos Anoyanakis and is housed in the historical Lassanis Mansion, which was built in 1842, close to the Roman Agora, in the district of Plaka.
The Museum of Greek Popular Musical Instruments.
The out-building is converted into an annex that now houses the Research Center and the archives, storerooms, a lecture hall and the Museum shop. In the garden of the Museum recitals of Greek traditional music take place. About half of the instruments forming the Anoyianakis Collection are on public display. The rest are stored and used for loans to exhibitions elsewhere. The permanent exhibition is spread over three floors and divided into four sections, corresponding to the groups of determined by the material that is made to vibrate in order to produce sound, namely:
- Idiophones koudounia (bells), massies (tongs with cymbals) simandro (semanterion) etc.
The objectives of the Museum and Research Center, as stated in the foundation charter, are as follows:
The collection, maintenance and display of popular musical instruments and generally of any material contributing to the research, study and furtherance of Greek musical tradition,
The promotion of research and study in connection with ethnomusicological subjects, in addition to the identification and dissemination of traditional music,
The preservation, study, projection and dissemination by all available means of Greek folk and Byzantine musical tradition, both in Greece and abroad, and
The creation of a special ethnomusicological and audio-visual archive.
Musical instrument display.
The courtyard of the Museum of Greek Popular Musical Instruments.
