Until the Durango Discovery Museum opens its doors to the public in a couple of years, anxious patrons can at least enjoy a melody of sounds against the din of ongoing construction.

Last week, the museum board accepted from two Durango Rotary clubs a donation of Durangoan Richard Cooke’s musical instruments called Freenotes. The Freenotes – constructed keys that create music no matter how the notes are played – will be placed outside on the museum’s events plaza.

Fenced off from the construction of converting a former power plant into the museum, the Freenotes will sit adjacent to the Animas River Trail and lure passersby to pick up a rubber mallet and play like a skilled musician.

“We are absolutely delighted to accept this gift,” says Jenny Vierling, a museum board member.

The gift comes from more than $6,000 raised by the Durango Daybreak and Durango High Noon Rotary clubs. The money came from member donations and a grant from the club’s Rotary District. Initially, explains Daybreak President Barbara Bratsch, the clubs hoped to place the Freenotes in Rotary Park. But after talks with the City of Durango, the idea lost support. Not wanting the money – or the idea – to fizzle, Bratsch said the clubs agreed to give the outdoor instruments to the Durango Discovery Museum.

The Freenotes will be the museum’s first offering to the public on the events plaza. Vierling says the plaza will eventually serve as a place for outdoor exhibits

and community gatherings. A recent grant from the National Park Service is helping the museum board get the plaza prepared in the next several months. Vierling says the Durango Discovery Museum will open some time in 2008 or 2009.

Cooke, who will soon begin constructing the instruments for Durango, says the plaza is an ideal place for the Freenotes and for locals to make music.

“People aren’t used to thinking they can make a sound they hear at a concert or on their stereo,” says Cooke. “But they’ll learn that’s not true. Putting the Freenotes at the museum is an effort to make the sounds of the world more lovely.”

– Amy Maestas