The Performance Space at The U.S. Mint

The New Orleans Mint Performing Arts Center located on the 3rd floor of the Louisiana State Museum’s Old US Mint facility incorporates full capabilities for the production, recording and web broadcasting of live music and theatrical performances, lectures, symposia, oral histories, video interviews, and curatorial panels.

From both a technical and cultural standpoint, the performance space at the Mint complements the Louisiana State Museum’s mission to collect, preserve and interpret buildings, documents, and artifacts that reveal Louisiana’s history and culture; and to present those items using both traditional and innovative technology to educate, enlighten, and provide enjoyment for the people of Louisiana and its visitors.

The Louisiana State Museum now links its ongoing collections audio digitization work-flow with that of the new Mint studio, including the digitization of the Louisiana State Museum’s internationally recognized Jazz Collection.

In recent years, the LSM has undertaken an effort to broaden the music collecting activities to include all aspects of Louisiana’s musical history. The new strategy involves collecting in a number of areas, including big band/swing, blues, brass bands, Cajun, classical, contemporary jazz, country, dance bands, funk, gospel, marching bands, Native American music, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, and zydeco.

These artifacts will soon be on exhibit in the Mint facility and the new performance space will provide the opportunity to link the artifacts and exhibits with the living musical and folk traditions of the region through a variety of avenues, including live musical and theatrical performances, web streaming, compact discs, lectures, symposia, conferences, and curatorial presentations.