Gulangyu Piano Museum

The Gulangyu Piano Museum is housed in Shuzhuang Garden on Gulangyu Island, Xiamen, Fujian, and is known as one of the first piano museums in China. Gulangyu has been nicknamed the Piano Island because of its high number of pianos per household and a musical tradition that began when foreign residents and missionaries brought instruments here during the international settlement period. The museum was founded in 1999 around the private collection of Hu Youyi, an overseas Chinese collector from Australia, who donated antique pianos he gathered over decades. The collection includes more than 40 historic instruments, including square pianos, upright pianos, grand pianos and other keyboard instruments from the 19th and early 20th centuries, made by makers from Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Notable pieces include a very early square piano and several instruments with elaborate cases and candle holders. The display is organised in two parts: the Piano Museum itself, and a second hall for organs and mechanical instruments, including a large pipe organ and a player piano. The setting in Shuzhuang Garden, built by a Taiwanese merchant in 1913, is a landscaped seaside garden, with the museum in a Western-style building. The approach is thematic, with explanations of instrument mechanisms and a history of music on the island. The museum also hosts occasional performances. The instruments are maintained by dedicated restorers, and many remain playable. Visitors arrive via ferry from Xiamen, and the garden location gives views of the sea and Gulangyu's coastline. Interpretation includes Chinese and English captions, and a visit usually takes around an hour.