Gulangyu Piano Museum: Exploring The World’s Finest Antique Instruments

China’s only piano museum is located on a picturesque islet off Xiamen City in Fujian Province.

Located 2 km off the coast of Xiamen City in China’s southeastern coastal Fujian Province is Gulangyu Islet, home to about 20,000 people. Access to the little island covering about 2 square km is by ferry from Xiamen; then electric buggies on the paved narrow ring path round the islet. After the British-led Opium War against China in 1842, 13 nations, including Britain, France and Japan, established consulates, churches and hospitals on Gulangyu, turning it into a joint concession.

Amongst the sites on the island any visitor is mostly unlikely to quickly forget is the Gulangyu Piano Museum. It is the only piano museum in China and all the instruments are more than 100 years old. The museum opened to public on December 22, 2001. Gulangyu Island is renowned for its culture of playing pianos as residents are known to own more than 600 personal pianos. The museum comprises two houses with two floors each, containing over 100 world-famous ancient pianos collected from the Americas, Australia, Britain, Austria and France.

“All the pianos were collected by Hu Youyi, a wealthy Chinese patriot who lived in Australia. He was born on Gulangyu Island and before his death in 2013, he donated the musical instruments to the State,” Xu Xiu, a female tour guide told Cameroon Tribune in Gulangyu on July 28, 2017. The collection includes the popular Steinway and Sons pianos made in the US during the beginning of the 19th Century. There are also the oldest and biggest vert...