#2016 SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL ARCHIVE#
#2016 SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL SERIES#

That campaign was successful and a third festival was soon organized around that Jpostal cancellation ceremony. First, they again sought a U.S.postage stamp commemoration for Joplin in to be issued on its first day from Sedalia. Then, in 1982, a group of community leaders again had the vision.

#2016 SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL ARCHIVE#

After two initial festivals, energy waned and finances failed, but the dream of an annual event was just too well established so, all the accumulated ephemera and artifacts and all the documents of the festivals were gathered into an archive to keep the heritage alive. So many of the second, third and even fourth generation performers gathered for that first “family reunion” here in Sedalia and all were thrilled that Eubie Blake, a first generation ragtime original, could still perform and entertain with the best of them.

#2016 SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL SERIES#

When community leaders came together in 1974 to hold the first series of concerts, symposia, contests and an idyllic ragtime in Liberty Park afternoon we only dreamed of the legacy that would be that first event. The heritage of this internationally respected event has now become part of our national musical culture as it celebrates America’s music.classic ragtime. The 2019 annual Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival was the 36th in a row and the 38th since the inaugural event in 1974. But it was his landmark Maple Leaf Rag published by music dealer John Stark in 1899 that jump started ragtime as popular music and made Scott Joplin the “King of Ragtime.” It was Classic Ragtime and and it made Sedalia a place where America’s music began. Joplin published several pieces of music in the popular genre of the day while on his travels including his first ragtime piece Original Rags in Kansas City. Joplin also gave piano lessons and taught two young men so well (Arthur Marshall and Scott Hayden),they would become collaborators. After the Fair, he came to Sedalia where he easily found employment, signed on to play with the Queen City Concert Band and attended music classes at the all-Negro George R. In 1893, he attended the Chicago Columbian Exposition in Chicago where he heard music from around the world and he was especially interested in an emerging form called syncopation. He joined up with vocal and instrumental groups and traveled by rail performing all over the country. His mother struggled to nurture his musical interests and paid for his classical piano lessons as a boy. Scott Joplin was born in Texarkana about 1868. What he did here made American music history. In the late 1890s, a young itinerant composer/ entertainer made Sedalia, Missouri his residence.

2016 scott joplin ragtime festival