A highly anticipated line-up of musical entertainers will highlight the 2024 Charles H. Templeton Sr. Ragtime & Jazz Festival scheduled for Feb. 22-24, 2024. Sponsored by the Mississippi State University Libraries and the Charles H. Templeton, Sr. Music Museum, the 18th annual festival will feature a combination of returning favorites and a fresh face who are guaranteed to entertain! Mark your calendars and join us for the festival.
The versatile and virtuosic Sweet & Hot Quartet brings a festival’s worth of entertainment on its own. Comprising Anne Barnhart, flute and vocals; T.J. Müller, strings brass and vocals; percussionist Josh Duffee; and Jeff Barnhart, piano and vocals, the quartet will concentrate on rollicking ragtime, brassy blues, nifty novelties, and sassy swing from the first half of the 20th century.
Dave Majchrzak will dazzle the audience with his special twist on ragtime classics. New Orleans clarinetist, vocalist, and educator Louis Ford will bring his brand of Jazz to the festival. Ford comes from a long line of musicians and will share unforgettable performances both magnificent and moving as well as keen insights into the place where it all began: New Orleans!
The festival will also include the Gatsby Gala, a fashion show featuring designs created and modeled by MSU students.
The Mississippi State University Libraries will also host the second annual Business of Music Symposium Feb. 21 and 22, 2024, as part of the Charles H. Templeton, Sr. Ragtime & Jazz Festival, to encourage research of their unique collection, which includes approximately 20,000 pieces of sheet music, over 200 instruments, 2,000 cylinders, and 14,000 disc recordings.
“The Templeton Collection focuses on music business during the Ragtime era (1890-1930), but paper proposals may cover any era of the sheet music and recording industries,” said organizer Jennifer McGillan, Coordinator of Manuscripts for the MSU Libraries. “The first day of the symposium will be in-person; the second day will be reserved for virtual presentations.”
McGillan said possible topics include careers of individual singers, composers, or people otherwise involved in creating music, art and design themes, approaches to teaching with sheet music and more.
The Charles Templeton, Sr. Ragtime & Jazz Festival is sponsored by the MSU Libraries and the Charles Templeton Sr. Music Museum as a means of enhancing the research in the area of ragtime music, increasing the awareness of the Templeton collection housed in the MSU Library, and introducing people to the sounds of Ragtime being performed by world-renowned ragtime musicians.
For more information on the festival, visit library.msstate.edu/ragtime-festival.
