The 2023 Charles H. Templeton, Sr. Ragtime and Jazz Festival was held on Thursday through Saturday, March 23-25 at Mississippi State University in Starkville. This edition followed last year’s format, but with two additions: there was an online symposium on Thursday featuring a five-person panel. I did not hear it, as it lasted most of the day and I was traveling then, but I hope it will be made available at a future time. Also new this year were 30-minute mini-concerts on Friday and Saturday mornings. Jeff Barnhart, the festival’s music director, reminded me that this was my idea after my first visit last year. I had suggested (and had since forgotten) that the symposia be supplemented with live music.
Thursday’s panelists: Greg Johnson, Blues Curator and Head of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Mississippi; Dr. Eric Weisbard, Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama; Dr. Ari Katorza, lecturer at the Rimon School of Music in Israel; Whitney Thompson, MLIS student at Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis; and Alan Munshower, Digital Collections Archivist at Virginia Tech. These five spoke about various composers, famous and little-known.
The in-person events always begin Thursday evening with a fashion show with creations by students of the MSU Fashion Design and Merchandising Program. There were about a dozen models, all f
