upcoming events
Beacoup Brass Trio
The Prank Bar DTLA / Traditional
April 1, 2026, 6-9pm
1100 S Hope St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Blow Brass Band
Second Line
Moore Park
April 18, 2026, 6pm
New Orleans Ragtime Day Music Festival
Ragtime Days invites audiences to hear ragtime as it was meant to be experienced: as social music connected to movement, community, and dance. With live performances, dance space at every venue, and free lessons in period social dances, the festival brings ragtime back into the room as living practice rather than museum piece.
Talk-Demo at he New Orleans Jazz Museum (The Mint) FREE
The April 9 talk-demo at Ragtime Days introduces ragtime as Black social music grounded in rhythm, movement, and shared practice. Led by Marc T. Gaspard Bolin and Walter Nelson as part of the Jazz Museum’s Music & the Mind series, the presentation connects ragtime foundations to dance, instrumental practice, brass bands, second line processions, and contemporary Black vernacular dance, showing how these continuities remain active in public life and community expression.
Thursday, April 9, 2026, 2-3pm
Friday, April 10, 2026
7:00–9:00 PM — Orchestra performance at Dance Quarter. The Friday night event is set up as a dance-centered opening, with an orchestra performance, dancing, and the venue’s bar, coffee shop, and studio space all part of the atmosphere. The materials I found give the performance time, but they do not name the orchestra in that schedule summary.
Also part of Friday night’s event: Walter Nelson is teaching, and the planning materials mention possible live music with pianist Anurag.
FREE Saturday, April 11, 2026 FREE
11:00–11:45 AM — Tom McDermott, The Mint. Tom McDermott is presented as a major New Orleans ragtime pianist whose playing moves easily across classic ragtime, Caribbean and South American dance forms, and later New Orleans piano traditions.
2:00–2:45 PM — Givonna Joseph’s Opera Creole, The Mint. Opera Creole returns with excerpts from Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, reviving the company’s earlier New Orleans Ragtime Festival presentation of this material.
Also performing Saturday:
Steve Pistorius. He is named in the Saturday schedule in the planning summary, though no public time is attached there.
John Robichaux material with the New John Robichaux Society Orchestra. Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious lead this nine-piece orchestra, which revives original music from the John Robichaux Band through archival recovery and period arrangements.
Louis Ford and His New Orleans Flairs. Louis Ford’s group is described as a longtime New Orleans traditional jazz ensemble with deep roots in the city’s musical culture and a long performance history at major festivals and events.
Sunday, April 12, 2026
1:30–2:15 PM — Givonna Joseph’s Opera Creole, Longue Vue. Opera Creole appears again on Sunday with its Treemonisha program.
Also part of Sunday’s program: picnic activities and a dance performance follow the Opera Creole set. The meeting summary describes the Sunday event as beginning at 2:15 PM, so that piece may still be in flux relative to the public listing.
Other festival performers named in the materials:
Lars Edegran’s New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. One of the key revival-era ragtime orchestras, known for historically grounded performances and influential recordings.
Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble. The LRJE is described as presenting the music ragtime became in its later years, using original arrangements and leading New Orleans traditional jazz improvisers.
New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra. A revival orchestra specializing in authentic orchestrations of American popular music from the 1890s through the early 1930s, with particular attention to New Orleans repertory.
For more information, please visit the Ragtime Day Website at https://www.ragtimedaynola.com/
Kirk Franklin Official Announcement: Mother’s Day Weekend Symphony, presented by Leon Lacey’s Black Tie Cinematic Symphony
Mother’s Day Weekend Symphony in Los Angeles, presented by Leon Lacey’s Black Tie Cinematic Symphony. Join us on Saturday, May 9, 2026, for a red-carpet black-tie affair.
Two shows — May 9, 2026, 5-7pm and 830-1030pm
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIFamXfHRfQ
Gustavo Dudamel: Celebrating the Musicians of the LA Phil
Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Join the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel for a special evening celebrating the musicians of the LA Phil during Dudamel’s final Walt Disney Concert Hall weekend as Music & Artistic Director. Featuring principal players of the orchestra as soloists in a program of Mozart, Strauss, and more.
The soloists include Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet; Andrew Bain, horn; Denis Bouriakov, flute; David Rejano Cantero, trombone; Emmanuel Ceysson, harp; Whitney Crockett, bassoon; Robert deMaine, cello; Christopher Hanulik, bass; and Thomas Hooten, trumpet.
Upbeat Live with Marc Gaspard Bolin begins at 7pm.
On March 16-17, 2024, I will present at LA Phil's Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk, “Marginalized Mavericks: Minority Composers Redefining Classical Traditions,” at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The talk begins one hour prior to each concert and will offer context for the weekend’s program.
Saturday, March 16, 2024 – 8:00PM
Sunday, March 17, 2024 – 2:00pm
Program
Ballade in A minor, Op. 33, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein
La Lección Tres, Victor Wooten
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Thomas Wilkins, conductor
LA Phil, Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk, at Walt Disney Concert Hall
On November 2-3, 2023, I will present at LA Phil's Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The talk will offer context for the weekend’s program.
Thursday, November 2, 2023 – 8:00PM
Friday, November 3, 2023 – 9:00pm
Program
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in Concert, John Williams Spotlight
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
LA Phil, Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk, at Walt Disney Concert Hall
On April 28, 2023, at 7PM + April 29, 2023, at 1PM.
I will present at LA Phil's Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The talk will offer context for the weekend’s program.
Program
Thomas Adès, Violin Concerto, “Concentric Paths”
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5, Op. 64
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Elim Chan, conductor
Leila Josefowicz, violin
LA Phil, Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk, at Walt Disney Concert Hall
"The Congo Square Ideology: COngo Square is, not was"
New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, a special place where African and European aesthetics mixed, creating the unique cultural expression known as jazz. So, the story goes. This well-worn story, known by some as the jazz creation myth, has been told and retold. And Congo Square, an area located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, now known as Louis Armstrong Park, plays a central role. Many scholars have unpacked the myths about the formation of the city's jazz tradition, attempting to correct the "falsehoods" that have crept into scholarly works concerning Congo Square. But, with the use of past tense, jazz historians have relegated Congo Square to the dustbin of history. This paper will argue that Black New Orleanians today actively participate in a thriving, living tradition that traces its roots to Congo Square, where an ideology was born [. . .]
On December 4, 2022, at 1PM, I presented LA Phil's Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The talk offered context for the afternoon's program.
December 4, 2022, at 1PM
Program
Tchaikovsky — Selections from The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky/Ellington/Strayhorn; arr. for orch. Tyzik)
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Paris Opera Ballet Film Collab
Los Angeles Children’s Chorus
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Artistic Director
LA Phil, Upbeat Live!, pre-concert talk, at Walt Disney Concert Hall
"The New Orleans Second Line: A Tradition on the Move"
In New Orleans, Louisiana, nearly every occasion is marked with a celebratory parade, most famously the Mardi Gras processions that seemingly take over the city during Carnival Time. But throughout the year, there are jazz funerals and parades known as "second lines" that fill the "Backatown" neighborhoods of New Orleans with the jubilant sounds of brass band music. Despite this, and the rapidly growing body of well-researched and well-meaning literature by "new jazz studies" scholars, second line culture remains excluded from jazz history courses the world over in favor of a single text that provides an "easier read" for undergraduate students. The resulting texts provide incomplete surveys that do little to correct previously held assumptions about jazz and are now deeply embedded within American culture, serving as an indoctrinating canon that limits the brass band's role and its practitioners within the jazz tradition [. . .]
ANNUAL FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY BRASS DAY
University Theater (map)
Featuring rehearsals, masterclasses, and side-by-side performances with area high school musicians and members of the FAU brass community, under the direction of Assistant Professor of Trumpet, Dr. Courtney Jones.
QUEENS RULE
Singletary Center for the Arts (map)
Among the pieces being performed will be the 15-minute Orchestral Suite from the opera Queenie Pie (arr. Marc T. Gaspard Bolin). The suite will be premiered by the Lexington Philharmonic in collaboration with the University of Kentucky Opera Theater, and conducted by Guest Conductor, Tong Chen.