Museo Nacional de la Música

This guide to the Museo Nacional de la Musica in Havana centers on a plain guitar case belonging to Maria Teresa Vera, who started singing for money at sixteen in 1911 and kept at it for over five decades. You'll hear about her teachers, the cigar-roller Jose Diaz and the trovador Manuel Corona, her twenty-seven years touring with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, and how a merchant's mansion built for a different purpose became a music museum in 1971. Look closely at the case in front of you before moving on to the rest of the collection.