Events
The season, as it lands.
Free community concerts, ticketed listening-room sessions, and student showcases. Every show holds a complimentary seat block for students and seniors, and every bill pays its artists.
Track record
This is not a first attempt.
Our founder has been producing and promoting live jazz for seven years, including a monthly series he hosts that regularly fills the room. The Carson Arts Foundation brings that same professionally produced programming home to Carson, and adds the education and archive work around it.
Season structure
How a Carson Arts Foundation year runs
Two formats, four seasons. Ticket revenue from the fall Signature Sessions subsidizes the free summer series, that's the whole financial model in one sentence.
Spring
Season opener and student showcase
The first bill of the year pairs a regionally recognized artist with a Carson-area ensemble, and puts Next Generation Jazz students on stage as openers.
Summer
Outdoor free community series
Free admission, city parks, no dress code, bring a chair. Our highest-attendance programming and the front door to everything else.
Fall
Signature Sessions, the ticketed listening-room run
Intimate seated performances in smaller rooms, with the sound quality and focus the music deserves. Ticket revenue subsidizes the free programming.
Winter
Holiday concert and annual fundraising gala
A gospel-jazz-leaning holiday program, followed by the year's one formal fundraising event.
Coming to a show
No dress code. No prior knowledge required.
- Free student & senior seats
- Held at every performance, ticketed or not, distributed through partner schools and senior centers.
- Pre-show talks
- Fifteen minutes before select concerts, what to listen for, who the artist is, why it matters.
- Accessibility
- Venue accessibility, parking, and seating details are published on every individual event page.
- Bring the kids
- Community Concerts are built for families. Bring a chair, bring a blanket, bring your mother.
Musician or ensemble? Submit for consideration. We program roughly a season ahead, and we pay our artists.
Support the music
A student is waiting on an instrument that has not been bought yet.
That is not a metaphor. It is the actual state of the lending library. Donations pay working musicians, hold free seats for students and seniors, put instruments in young players' hands, and record the elders while there is still time. In that order.