Friends of Scott Joplin

Today's the day! The start of the 34th Annual West Coast Ragtime Festival! Tune in at 3:00 PM PST (6 PM EST) today for our first program, the Festival Sampler! ...You can watch it here on Facebook or at the following Youtube link, and please share this with your friends! https://youtu.be/YYQVsMjHw_Y See more

Wanting to get the word out....the board has decided to make a few changes in terms of how we run things, with the ultimate goal in mind of reducing our operating costs, so that more our time energy and money go to supporting and promoting ragtime music in St Louis. One of the ways we've decided to do this is to take advantage of changes in how the internet works, particularly with social media, email and other, interconnected services. When we created our website, and the em...ail that went with it ([email protected]) our goal was that this would be our "face" to the online world, where we shared who we were, what we did and be a one-stop spot to learn about us, join us, contact us, and keep up with what we do. It did a great job of that -- until social media came along and let us do the same thing, not only much easier, but much better. For example...our Facebook presence allows us to promote our programming and events not only more easily than we could via our website, but far better, allowing us to not only target a much broader audience but providing us important feedback about how to get better at what we do. Of course, not everyone uses Facebook, and for that reason we will (Once things get back up and running with the Rosebud) continue our monthly email event reminders.... using our new gmail address. Migrating to a gmail account for our email not only provides a much more user-friendly email address, but allows us to connect it to other google services, not the least of which is our existing YouTube account. Other features such as the calendar and maps features will also prove useful, as will google drive. We're already exploring how best to utilize the many features a gmail address provides. With all this in mind, our website, friendsofscottjoplin.org will soon disappear, and our old email address, info@friendsofscottjoplin will soon cease to exist as well. This will result in a substantial savings, as the cost of operating our email address and website were significant. Please, take a moment to update your address books to include our new email address. Bryan Cather, president

Looking forward to seeing YOU today!

After careful consideration, we are taking down our stand-alone website, friendsofscottjoplin.org, and its related email capacity. This decision was made upon the realization that all of the websites functions were redundant, and better served by social media platforms like this page. The website will remain online through the end of 2019 but will go dark shortly thereafter.

Scott Joplin House State Historic Site hosts public information meeting Nov. 2 Representatives from Missouri State Parks invite the public to an informational meeting about Scott Joplin House State Historic Site at 1 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 2, in the museum. Representatives from the site will be on hand to provide information about the site and to answer questions. The public is invited to share comments and ask questions about the site and its operations.... Input from the public is important to Missouri State Parks. These informational meetings, which are being held in all state parks and historic sites, help create two-way communication with the public. The meetings give staff the opportunity to let people know the current status and future plans for the parks and historic sites, and they offer visitors the opportunity to comment on the facilities. Scott Joplin House State Historic Site is located at 2658 Delmar in St. Louis. For more information about the meeting, call the site at 314-340-5790. For more information on state parks and historic sites, visit the web at mostateparks.com. Missouri State Parks is a division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources

Hello Friends The Ragtime Rendezvous remains on hiatus, pending what should be permanent repairs to the heating and cooling system in the Rosebud. As many of you know, this has been an ongoing issue for years, and the repairs being made should address the problems once and for all. Once the Rosebud is back up and running, we have lots of exciting plans in store, including but not limited to resuming the Ragtime Rendezvous. We're also planning to host an exciting range of ...ragtime, blues and early jazz performers, and a host of other programs in conjunction with the Joplin House staff. I know I am a bit behind schedule for our newsletter, the Euphony Review, but please bear with me... I'm in graduate school now and time constraints are doing a number on me....that said I hope to have the next issue out to our members in early November. I apologise for the delay. In the meantime, enjoy this less-often-heard ragtime work by the St. Louis composer and educator, Edward J. Mellinger. https://youtu.be/fSb_Qd_ndxU