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Dr. Amanda Villepastour, curator of the Musical Instrument Museum's Africa and Middle East galleries, is leaving the north Phoenix museum.
Villepastour, whose last day at MIM is December 17, declined comment on her future plans.
As of the time this post was published, MIM media relations manager Alan di Perna tells New Times that a replacement has not been found.
Villepastour, one of the MIM's five chief curators, joined the museum in June 2009. During her eighteen-month tenure, she specialized in collecting African instruments as well as presenting Africa-based performers at the venue's theater.
"I'm doing everything I used to do as leisure," Villepastour told New Times weeks before the MIM opened on April 24 of this year. "Now I'm getting paid for it."
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