The New Orleans Jazz Museum presents The First Piano Professors and the Lost Music of Early New Orleans, a major exhibition, recording, and public programming initiative opening April 16, 2026.

While New Orleans is globally recognized as the birthplace of jazz, the musical world that made jazz possible has remained largely unheard. Long before recording technology, and decades before jazz as we know it emerged, New Orleans composers were publishing piano music that blended African, Afro-Caribbean, Creole, and European traditions in ways that anticipated jazz’s rhythmic vitality and expressive range. Much of this repertoire survived only as fragile printed sheet music and has never been performed for modern audiences.

Drawing from a remarkable private archive assembled over three decades by pianist and curator John Davis, the exhibition reunites rare first-edition scores with newly commissioned recordings, allowing visitors to hear music not known to be recorded since its inception in the nineteenth century, the music that prefigured America’s most influential art form.

The exhibition will present original sheet music, instruments, photographs, and publishing ephemera within an immersive sound environment designed by 2x4 in collaboration with the Museum’s curatorial and archival teams. The recordings, now in production, will anchor the gallery experience and extend the project’s impact through concerts, lectures, and educational programs.The New Orleans Jazz Museum seeks funding for exhibitions like The First Piano Professors and the Lost Music of Early New Orleans, a major 2026 exhibition, recording, and public programming initiative.