Instituto Moreira Salles

Created in 1990 by Walther Moreira Salles (1912-2001), at the time president of Unibanco. In 2008 the bank merged with Itaú Banco, becoming the largest in Brazil. The Moreira Salles Institute is a civil non-profit entity which develops cultural projects in five areas: Brazilian music, photography, literature, cinema and fine arts.

IMS avoids sponsorships and the support of fiscal incentive laws in the conception and execution of its own initiatives to differentiate itself from other private cultural institutions in Brazil even though it has the support of Petrobras at its venues. The institute gives priority to medium and long-term projects, with regular programmes for the training and education of audiences — in the music field, the project to restore the historic collections of popular Brazilian music. With units in São Paulo (the institute’s headquarters), in Rio and the cities of Belo Horizonte and Poços de Caldas (both in the State of Minas Gerais), since 2002 the IMS has maintained in Rio its Technical Musical Reserve, dedicated to the preservation and propagation of the national heritage of Popular Brazilian Music. This venue houses the Petrobrás Reference Centre for Brazilian Music, whose collection forms the largest historic music legacy in the country, made up of recordings and sheet music of composers such as Chiquinha Gonzaga, Ernesto Nazareth and Pixinguinha, some of the outstanding musicians at the basis of Brazilian music, the choro. The material can be researched in the Rio unit of the IMS, and part of it is available for listening online on Radio IMS, a partnership with Radio UOL (Internet Service Provider).

With a greater focus on film (Unibanco owns a chain of film-theatres in the country), the institution has only a small musical programming at its units, such as performance - lectures and workshops free of charge for the elderly. The new music coordinator the IMS intends to make this programming, which today is “almost non-existent”, more dynamic, and, eventually to open a dialogue with institutions in other countries.

Addresses:

Av. Paulista, 1.294, 14º andar, São Paulo, SP - (office)

R. Marquês de São Vicente, 476, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Av. Afonso Pena, 737, Belo Horizonte, MG

R. Teresópolis, 90, Poços de Caldas, MG

Bia Paes Leme (music coordinator):