Palacio de la Música

The Palacio de la Música, officially the Palacio de la Música Mexicana, is a cultural center in Mérida's historic center devoted to the country's music. It stands on Calle 58 at the corner of Calle 59, behind the church of the Tercera Orden and a block from Parque Hidalgo, so it is an easy stop on any walk around Plaza Grande. It is run by the state government of Yucatán and is the seat of the Centro Nacional de la Música Mexicana.

The site was for more than three decades, from 1980, the home of Yucatán's state Congress. That building was taken down in late 2015, and construction of the new one began in January 2016 with the state and federal governments sharing the cost of about 348 million pesos. Four architecture studios designed it together, working with INAH because of its place in the colonial center. President Enrique Peña Nieto opened it on 25 June 2018, with the Yucatecan composer Armando Manzanero at the ceremony, and in 2019 it was named work of the year by the trade magazine Obras. The result is deliberately contemporary: about 8,800 square meters on four levels, with a pale stone outer wall marked by slots that echo the punched rolls of a player piano, and two curved, slatted wings around an open central courtyard, the Patio de Cuerdas, from which you look straight at the old dome of the Tercera Orden.

Inside is an interactive museum that walks through Mexican music from pre-Hispanic instruments to folk and regional traditions, popular song and the music of Yucatán and its indigenous peoples, with a room in the style of a Yucatecan courtyard, a pavilion on trova yucateca, a mock radio booth, a small cinema on the golden age of Mexican film and displays on vinyl records. There is also a sound and video library. The concert hall seats 458 and is lined with three regional woods; the Yucatán Symphony Orchestra is among those who play there. Each month the program includes concerts, band performances, workshops and open-mic nights, and on Fridays there is trova at 7 pm in the hall or the courtyard.