Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Ragtime, jazz, stride, blues, and boogie-woogie return to Mississippi State next month with the fourth annual Charles Templeton Ragtime Jazz Festival.
Advance tickets for the March 26 and 27 public events now are available at http://library.msstate.edu/ragtime/festival/. Admission includes single-day events, a single evening's concert or the entire two-day festival.
A one-of-a-kind musical celebration, the university program is sponsored by MSU Libraries and its Charles H. Templeton Sr. Music Museum. As always, the schedule features some of the genres' most accomplished performers.
Concerts, mini-concerts and lectures center around the library's unique Templeton Collection--some 22,000 pieces of sheet music, 15,000 playable musical items and almost 200 musical instruments ranging from the 1880s to the 1930s. All document a distinctly American approach to the "business of music," as was late benefactor Charles Templeton's wish.
Festival participants will be treated to concerts in the Lee Hall's Bettersworth Auditorium, as well as more intimate performances and discussions in Mitchell Memorial Library's third-floor John Grisham Room.
Complementing the music, the event also highlights the culture of the times through museum tours. Noted collector and historian David A. Jasen, author of definitive reference works on ragtime, will help put the music, composers and culture in a modern perspective.
The festival is supported, in part, by a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Performers this year include:
--Frederick Hodges. He is considered among the best ragtime pianists and authorities on the genre, with artistry, virtuosity and charisma that have taken him to performance stages around the world.
--Carl Sonny Leyland. Returning for his second festival appearance, the British-born musician is regarded to be among today's great boogie-woogie pianists. A widely traveled lecturer on the history of the blues and boogie-woogie piano, he is one of a few able to accurately recreate the sounds of Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Jimmy Yancey, and other boogie-woogie giants.
--Adam Swanson. Though only 18, the Iowa resident is ranked among the world's foremost performers of American ragtime music. In 2008, he became the youngest pianist to win the World-Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest.
--Terry Waldo. Known for his virtuoso ragtime and stride piano playing, charming vocals and disarming wit, Waldo is the protégé of the legendary Eubie Blake, who called him "an extension of my own musical self."
For those desiring to take home the music and memories, a gift shop will offer the performers' compact discs for purchase.
For more information, visit http://library.msstate.edu/ragtime/festival/, or contact Lyle Tate at 662-325-2559 or ltate@library.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.