French Quarter Festival is a free, annual

music festival A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or h ...

held in early April, located in the historic

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Squ ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Founded in 1983 with the first festival held in 1984, the festival features primarily

New Orleans music The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana, is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of th ...

, such as

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, and

zydeco Zydeco ( or , french: Zarico) is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Al ...

from hundreds of local musicians, as well as food from dozens of New Orleans restaurants. In April 2008, jazz pianist Ronnie Kole recalled the origins of the idea of creating a new event in New Orleans. In the early 1980s, the Mayor's office recruited ten people, nine business owners and one musician, to put together a new festival for the city. With an estimated attendance of over 800,000 in 2019, the festival bills itself as "the world's largest showcase of Louisiana music." In 2020 and 2021, however, the event was cancelled in light of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, with hope for a return in April 2022. During French Quarter Festival, more than 20 stages throughout the French Quarter perform local music and represent genres from traditional and contemporary jazz to R&B, New Orleans funk, brass bands, folk, gospel, Latin, Zydeco, classical, cabaret, and international. As of 2021, French Quarter Festival,

Satchmo Summerfest Satchmo SummerFest (also known as Satchmofest) is an annual music festival held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in celebration of the jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. It is held in early August in order to coincide with August 4, Armstrong's birthday ...

, and Holidays New Orleans Style are formally overseen by the nonprofit French Quarter Festivals, Inc., which as of 2017 is led by CEO Emily Madero. In February 2022, French Quarter Festival announced a return in April 2022. The 2022 event will take place April 21-24, 2022.

References

External links

French Quarter Festivals Inc. Webpage

NOLA.com articles on French Quarter Fest
Music festivals in Louisiana French Quarter Jazz festivals in Louisiana Music festivals established in 1984 Blues festivals in the United States Festivals in New Orleans {{Music-festival-stub

See also

References

External links