Valerie Kirchhoff, a/k/a Miss Jubilee, and her musical partner, barrelhouse pianist Ethan Leinwand, came from St. The Festival did a good job of finding subs and adjusting the schedule, but apparently not soon enough to make public announcements of the changes. Three more musicians had to cancel at the last minute due to COVID exposure: Brian Holland, Bill McNally, and a new name to me, Marilyn Nonken. There were four non-pianists on the agenda: violinist David Reffkin, a well-known figure in the ragtime genre who has been there many times vocalist Joyce Richardson, a retired music teacher from New Jersey, plus a regular, drummer Danny Coots, and a newcomer (but not to me), multi-instrumentalist T.J. The others were making their Joplin premieres. She has performed at several past Joplin festivals. Virginia, I learned, has an extensive pedigree not only in ragtime but also in the classical field. These included pianists Peter Bergin, Dick Moulding, Jonathan Levin, and Virginia Eskin. An exemplary roster of performers were on the card, several of whom were new to me. But for the distance, I would attend more often. I attended that event, as well as the 20 editions. This was the first in-person festival since 2019, and the feeling of joy was as evident among the musicians as among the audience. And by then the humidity was creeping up, perhaps to remind us that the weather we had enjoyed the past few days was not the norm in Missouri in June. Well, almost there was a brief light shower during the last set in the Stark tent on Saturday afternoon. After a cold front dumped 2.9 inches of rain on Sedalia, enough to be the most anywhere in the US that day, just before the event opened, the skies cleared and ushered in three days of delightful temperatures and low humidity. The weather gods smiled on this year’s Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival on June 1-4 in Sedalia, Missouri.
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