CORONA, QUEENS, NY (CelebrityAccess) – The internationally renowned Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens, announced the official opening date of its new state-of-the-art building – preserving and expanding the legacy and ideals of America’s first famous Black music icon. The Louis Armstrong Center will open on Thursday (July 6).
Armstrong’s Artistic Excellence, Education and Community values will be fostered in Here to Stay, the Center’s exhibition, curated by award-winning pianist, composer and Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, Jason Moran. The new Center will be a permanent home for the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive (the world’s largest for a jazz musician) and a 75-seat venue offering performances, lectures, films, and educational experiences.
“This is a landmark moment for the Louis Armstrong House Museum,” said Executive Director Regina Bain. “Standing on the shoulders of the jazz and community greats who have come before us, the new Louis Armstrong Center invites today’s musicians, neighbors, and global fans to discover Louis and Lucille Armstrong’s story from a new perspective. We will bring the Armstrongs’ unique archives alive through new interactive events. And we will ensure that music once again rings out on 107th Street through groundbreaking programs in collaboration with emerging artists and contemporary icons.”
The Louis Armstrong Center will celebrate Armstrong’s role in African-Diaspora history and vitality, offering year-round exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and screenings through several public programs for all ages. With longstanding partners Queens College, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, members, supporters and programmatic collaborators, the museum and center will become a hub for inspiration and learning.
The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation donated the Armstrong archives in the 1980s and provided the funds to purchase the new Center’s lot. The City University of New York (CUNY) and Queens College officials, working with state and city legislators, led the advocacy for funding the $26 million building across the street from the original Armstrong home.
The museum staff and board for the past 15 years, including former Director, Michael Cogswell, worked tirelessly to ensure the new building’s success.
The Museum is announcing the upcoming season of its groundbreaking Armstrong Now, featuring the creation and debut of new works by Esperanza Spalding, Amyra León and Antonio Brown. Armstrong Now provides established and emerging artists a platform to create new work inspired by Armstrong’s legacy.
This National Historic Landmark museum welcomes its new addition across the street during Black Music Month and the 80th anniversary of Louis and Lucille Armstrong moving to the legendary jazz trumpeter’s restored home.
“Louis Armstrong is the greatest of all American virtuosos,” states Wynton Marsalis, President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. “With his trumpet and voice, Armstrong redefined what it meant to be modern by testifying to the range and depth of humanity from the vantage point of the bottom social strata in post-Reconstruction America.
“He was able to evoke deep blues and spiritual feeling, to dance notes with extreme rhythmic sophistication, and to improvise meaningful melodies on the spot with absolute harmonic accuracy. His genius and charisma influenced generations of musicians from all over the world. His generosity and unique personality have made him an international icon. Louis Armstrong’s trumpet is the sound of freedom; with it, he left the world so much richer than how he found it. We need his consciousness, intelligence and broad understanding now more than ever.
“The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation was the baseline grantor of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and we have been in full support throughout the growth of this historic site. We are so proud of the Museum and the new Armstrong Center. This great achievement is a physical representation of the down-home soulful world of Pops. It is much, much more than just a place. It’s a way for all people from everywhere to physically interact with the profound and deeply moving legacy of Lucille and Louis Armstrong.”
The new Center’s exhibition will look at Armstrong’s five-decade career as an innovative musician, rigorous archivist, consummate collaborator and community builder – entertaining millions from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in the working-class neighborhood of Corona.
The Center and the historic house will be open to the public from Thursdays through Saturdays. Tickets can be purchased on the Museum’s website.
