STARKVILLE — Mississippi State’s Charles H. Templeton Ragtime & Jazz Festival is making its return to the university for a 16th year.
The festival will be held March 24-26 in the Charles Templeton Music Museum, located on the fourth floor of Mitchell Memorial Library. Jazz music and its history are the focus of this year’s event, which is making an in-person comeback after previously being held virtually in 2021.
The festival begins with the annual Gatsby Gala in the lobby of Mitchell Memorial Library. The 6 p.m. show will present 1920s-inspired fashion created by MSU School of Human Sciences fashion design and merchandising students and modeled by MSU Fashion Board members. Admission is free, and era-appropriate outfits are encouraged.
Tours and seminars are offered during the day March 25-26. Among the talks will be “The Life and Music of Janice Cleary,” a seminar held at 1:30 p.m. March 25 dedicated to celebrating the late Cleary, who donated one of the largest sheet music collections in the U.S. to the university shortly before her death in 2021. A presentation of her sheet music will be held at 11 a.m. March 26, showcasing rarities from her collection.
Concerts will be held March 25 and 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the McComas Hall Theater, with performances from this year’s featured musicians:
■ The Sweet & Hot Quartet, comprised of Jeff and Anne Barnhart, which previously performed at the university as Ivory & Gold. This year, they are accompanied by multi-instrumentalist T.J. Müller and percussionist Josh Duffee. The band performs jazz and ragtime music.
■ Donald Ryan, a pianist originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies. Since coming to the U.S., Ryan has been a recipient of the international Chopin Competition Madeyska Award, been featured as a decade-long annual performer at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, and has graced venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Wayne Newton Theater in Las Vegas, as well as performed in several countries.
■ Adam Swanson is currently the only four-time winner of the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest. He has held performances at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood and the Kennedy Center, as well as in Hungary, Switzerland and Australia. This year, Swanson is performing a tribute to the late Cleary and her sheet music collection.
Registration is available at festival.library.msstate.edu. Admission to all festival events is free for MSU students with valid student I.D. General admission tickets good for all festival events are available for $65 each. Patrons can purchase a “Friday Only Ticket” for $35, which is good for all Friday events including the evening concert. A “Saturday Only Ticket” option also is available for Saturday’s events and concert. Tickets just for the Friday and Saturday concerts can be purchased for $15 each. Discounted fees are available for senior citizens and retired MSU faculty and staff members. Tickets are available for advance purchase online and also will be sold at the door.
For information, visit festival.library.msstate.edu, call 662-325-6634 or email [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.