The New Orleans Jazz Museum presents The First Piano Professors and the Lost Music of Early New Orleans, a major exhibition revealing the unheard 19th-century world that preceded jazz.

Before recorded sound, New Orleans was a center for composition. This exhibition unveils forgotten piano music, written and published by composers, many African American and Creole, who fused African, Afro-Caribbean, Creole, and European traditions into a unique local sound.

Curated by pianist and archivistJohn Davis, the project is based on a 30-year search for keyboard works, primarily surviving as printed sheet music. Visitors will experience rare first-edition scores and historic instruments alongside thefirst-ever modern recordingsof this foundational music, positioning New Orleans as a city of composers whose written work circulated globally.The exhibition, curated by pianist and archivist John Davis from his three-decade private archive, in conjunction with renowned, global creative design studio 2x4, reunites rare first-edition scores with newly commissioned recordings. Visitors will hear music not recorded since its 19th-century inception, prefiguring America’s most influential art form. The New Orleans Jazz Museum presentsThe First Piano Professors and the Lost Music of Early New Orleans, a major exhibition revealing the unheard 19th-century world that preceded jazz.