Watch the video of our event celebrating the music of Charles Mingus at the High School for Civil Rights (Thomas Jefferson Campus) in East New York. As you'll see, members of the Mingus legacy bands performed with children from the community.

The event was hosted by Academy Award nominee Rosie Perez and featured live music by members of the Mingus bands (including a few Grammy winners). Children performed their own interpretations of the music of legendary jazz artist and composer Charles Mingus, whose legacy, like Duke Ellington’s, is one of the largest and most comprehensive in twentieth-century American music. 

The program was created in collaboration with Let My Children Hear Music: The Charles Mingus Institute and facilitators from Teachers College at Columbia University, and based on the all-important jazz concept of improvisation. 

The performance not only provided an opportunity for children from one of the most impoverished areas of New York City to be exposed to music and self expression, but is also based on the belief that music and art can increase academic performance and assist in self-expression, problem-solving, and other cognitive skills.

View photos of the event here.

Event Sponsors

The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP

David & Kristen Woll

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Davis Polk & Wardwell

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

The Medical Link

O’Connor Davies Munns & Dobbins, LLP

The Oberman Companies

Charles Peck & Liora Manne

Deborah Goldberg & Thomas Bernhard