Sunni Fass '97 Joins Staff at the Musical Instrument Museum

Sunni Fass '97 has been hired as Assistant Curator of Musical Instruments at The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), a new institution that is currently under development in Phoenix, Arizona.

The museum is scheduled to open to the public in 2010. Sunni will have curatorial responsibility for a number of galleries at MIM, including the collections from Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and parts of North America. She began her new duties in March 2008.

Sunni got her start in the field while serving as the first student curator of the Ewell Hall musical instrument exhibit, back in the early 1990s, exploring what was then just a fledgling ethnomusicology program at William & Mary. She went on to earn an M.A. (2003) and Ph.D. (2006) in ethnomusicology at Indiana University, and she is excited about finally having an opportunity to come back to her instrument-exhibiting roots!

A nonprofit organization, MIM has a mission to celebrate the history and diversity of musical instruments from cultures representing every country of the world. MIM aims to acquire, protect, preserve, restore, interpret, and exhibit musical instruments and accompanying audio and video from an incredible range of musical traditions. Museum guests will experience this musical heritage in more than 80,000 square feet of state-of-the-art exhibit space.