John Royen is a ragtime, stride and jazz pianist, currently living and performing in New Orleans. He has performed, toured and recorded with many contemporary New Orleans jazz greats, including The Dukes of Dixieland, Tim Laughlin, The Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Duke Heitger’s Steamboat Stompers, Jacques Gauthe, Jack Maheu, and all of the major jazz groups in the city. John has been playing for over 20 years with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and has performed at the Kennedy Center, the U.S. State Department, the National Press Club, the Smithsonian Institution, the New Orleans Historical Jazz Park, and numerous universities, theaters and performing arts centers around the country, in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Canada.

Originally from Washington, D.C., John Royen moved to New Orleans in 1976 to learn from and play with the best jazz musicians in the country. He was fortunate enough to study with the great Don Ewell and to pick up some important pointers from the likes of Joe Turner and Washington D.C. pianist, John Eaton. He learned his style under the tutelage of jazz legend Don Ewell, who performed with such jazz greats as “Bunk” Johnson and Jack Teagarden.

Free and open to the public, sponsored by the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park.