NEW YORK, NY.- After an eight-month hiatus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art reopens its André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments on March 2, featuring a refreshed and reinstalled presentation of its renowned collection of Western musical instruments. Showcasing more than 230 works of art drawn primarily from the Museum’s extensive holdings, which are among the most important in the world, the new installation of Western musical instruments will focus attention on individual masterworks by exploring each within its musical and cultural context, by offering exciting comparisons of how individual makers realized the same concept, and by introducing examples of the various instruments’ developments. Among the wide range of objects on view—keyboard, string, percussion, woodwind, and brass instruments—a highlight will be