New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Awards Over $2 Million in 2026-2027 Community Partnership Grants to 513 Recipients
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, based in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, announced its 2026-2027 Community Partnership Grant awards on October 28: the foundation is granting more than $2 million to 513 individual artists and organizations, with individual awards ranging from $1,000 to $7,500, supporting projects led by artists, musicians, educators and culture bearers across the state.
The grants fall into five categories: Education In-School, Education After-School, Presenting, Media: Documentation & Creation, and Louisiana Cultural Equity Arts & Creation. Funded projects span more than half of Louisiana's parishes and range from structured classes and youth after-school programs to documentaries, community radio programs, recordings and finished albums. Recipients include singer Robin Barnes, known for her role on the television series NCIS: New Orleans, whose new album Louisiana Love was recorded with support from the program.
Sarita M. Carriere, the foundation's interim executive director, said the Community Partnership Grants are among her favorite parts of working at the foundation. She said the peer-reviewed, statewide grants open doors and generate income for artists, and remind us that art is "the voice of the people, and the record keeper of history."
Founded in 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation is the nonprofit that owns the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The foundation has reinvested festival proceeds in the local community since 1979, and its grantmaking over the past decade has surpassed $20 million. The foundation also operates radio station WWOZ 90.7 FM, the Jazz & Heritage Archive, the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park partnership and the George and Joyce Weinman Jazz & Heritage Center.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 路易斯安那州新奥尔良法国区的铜管乐队街头演出（资料图）。NawlinWiki 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A brass band performs in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana (file photo). Photo by NawlinWiki, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
