Music

Listen to Matthew Evan Taylor’s “Life Returns”, a monumental work that encompasses bite-sized pieces of music, which explore African-American, South Asian, and Western European musical practices.

Learn more about John Blanke, a trumpeter who performed at the coronation of Henry VIII, and other documented free Black residents of Tudor England.

Watch this 1955 interview with Andrés Segovia in which he discusses his relationship with master luthier Hermann Hauser and plays the guitar Hauser built for him.

Bob Grillo performs Ah, Marie with his guitar.

Rooted in Afro-Caribbean rhythms and a commitment to improvisation, Conclave brings new sonic colors and shades of experience to the dance floor.

Watch El Cimarrón, a performance based on the oral autobiography of Esteban Montejo, who was born into enslavement, escaped bondage on a Cuban sugar plantation, survived in the jungle, fought for Cuban independence from Spain, and lived to tell about it all before dying at the age of 113.

Watch a performance in the Musical Instruments galleries on The Met's Appleton Organ.