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Louisiana

French Quarter Music Festival

Program No. 10918RJ
Immerse yourself in great music at the French Quarter Music Festival, where you’ll hear renowned musicians showcasing a range of musical styles. Come for the music stay for the cuisine.
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Music Festivals
Length
6 days
Rating (5)
Activity Level
Starts at
2,199

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Prefer to enroll or inquire by phone? 800-454-5768
climate
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Prices displayed below are based on per person,doubleoccupancy.
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Apr 10 - Apr 15, 2024
Starting at
2,199
SOLD OUT
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Apr 10 - Apr 15, 2024
Starting at
2,869
SOLD OUT
Deposit, Transfer & Cancellation Policy
Optional Trip Protection Plan
Prefer to enroll or inquire by phone? 800-454-5768
6 days
5 nights
10 meals
4B 1BR 2L 3D
1
Check-in, Registration, Orientation, Welcome Dinner
New Orleans, LA
2
Exclusive Performance, City Field Trip, Festival Begins
New Orleans, LA
3
Private Music Performance, French Quarter Music Festival
New Orleans, LA
4
Private Jazz Performance, French Quarter Festival, Free Time
New Orleans, LA
5
Private Music Performance, French Quarter Festival
New Orleans, LA
6
Jazz Brunch, Program Concludes
New Orleans, LA
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At a Glance

You can’t get more New Orleans than this showcase for hundreds of local musicians on 14 stages throughout the historic Vieux Carré. There’s jazz, from Dixieland to contemporary, brass bands, classical, Cajun and Zydeco, rhythm and blues, gospel and everything in between. During private morning sessions, local musicians reveal the history and meaning behind their music as they perform just for you. Sample classic New Orleans cuisine from nearly 60 food and drink booths, visit private patios, enjoy fireworks over the Mississippi River, join in a “second line” parade and attend art exhibits and music workshops.
Activity Level
On Your Feet
Walking 6-8 city blocks per day.

Best of all, you’ll…

  • Revel in three days of authentic New Orleans music at the French Quarter Festival.
  • Sample the Crescent City’s famous cuisine at renowned restaurants like Bourbon House, Muriel’s, Palace Café and the Court of Two Sisters.
  • Experience special performances by top New Orleans musicians.
Featured Expert
All Experts
Profile Image
Doreen Ketchens
Doreen Ketchens is a musician whose primary interest lies in spreading the culture and traditional music of New Orleans all over the world, through performances and education. As the leader of the jazz band Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans, she has been called "Queen Clarinet", "The female Louis Armstrong", and “Lady Louie” by critics who have heard her perform. Her husband, Lawrence, plays the tuba, valve trombone and piano with the group. Doreen's Jazz New Orleans has represented New Orleans around the world, performing in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, South America, Russia and the U.S. They have played for four U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. It is almost impossible to sit through a performance of Doreen's Jazz New Orleans without moving in your seat, shouting, clapping, or tapping your feet — we think you’ll agree!

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Profile Image of Doreen Ketchens
Doreen Ketchens View biography
Doreen Ketchens is a musician whose primary interest lies in spreading the culture and traditional music of New Orleans all over the world, through performances and education. As the leader of the jazz band Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans, she has been called "Queen Clarinet", "The female Louis Armstrong", and “Lady Louie” by critics who have heard her perform. Her husband, Lawrence, plays the tuba, valve trombone and piano with the group. Doreen's Jazz New Orleans has represented New Orleans around the world, performing in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, South America, Russia and the U.S. They have played for four U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. It is almost impossible to sit through a performance of Doreen's Jazz New Orleans without moving in your seat, shouting, clapping, or tapping your feet — we think you’ll agree!
Profile Image of Michael White-band leader
Michael White-band leader View biography
Dr. Michael White is a leading figure in New Orleans jazz and one of only a few to creatively carry on the rich clarinet sound of that city. He has played with many noted musicians, including Wynton Marsalis, and has 12 recordings under his own name. Michael has performed in over two dozen countries, and has been profiled in numerous publications, including the New York Times. In 2013, he was selected as Clarinetist of the Year at the Offbeat Magazine Best of the Beat Awards.
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
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All The King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren
All the King's Men traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on Governor Huey ""Kingfish"" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power.
Why New Orleans Matters
by Tom Piazza
In the aftermath of Katrina and the disaster that followed, promises were made, forgotten, and renewed. Now what will become of New Orleans in the years ahead? What do this proud, battered city and its people mean to America and the world? Award-winning author and longtime New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and neglected American metropolis by evoking the sensuous rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking; examining its deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice; and explaining how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world: its grace and beauty, resilience and soul.
Jazz Masters of New Orleans
by Martin Williams
Presents a portrait of New Orleans and the history of jazz as revealed in the careers of such jazz musicians as Louis Armstrong and Sydney Bechet. Williams was director of the Jazz Program in the Smithsonian Institution, and "brings a refreshing wholeness of perspective to the music."
Louis Armstrong: An American Genius
by James Lincoln Collier
Louis Armstrong. "Satchmo." To millions of fans, he was just a great entertainer. But to jazz aficionados, he was one of the most important musicians of our times--not only a key figure in the history of jazz but a formative influence on all of 20th-century popular music. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York during the "jazz age", Collier re-creates the saga of an old-fashioned black man making it in a white world. He chronicles Armstrong's rise as a musician, his scrapes with the law, his relationships with four wives, and his frequent feuds with fellow musicians Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. He also sheds new light on Armstrong's endless need for approval, his streak of jealousy, and perhaps most important, what some consider his betrayal of his gift as he opted for commercial success and stardom. A unique biography, knowledgeable, insightful, and packed with information, it ends with Armstrong's death in 1971 as one of the best-known figures in American entertainment.
New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album
by Al Rose and Edmond Souchon
If you are a lover and historian of Jazz, especially Dixieland, this is a must have. Many famous artists are listed, but also many obscure and unknown ones as well that helped form and develop the Jazz scene in New Orleans. Additionally, rare photos of numerous individuals, bands and locations in New Orleans are featured.
Rising Tide
by John Barry
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known -- the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever.
Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by American novelist John Kennedy Toole, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide. The book, published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a revealing foreword) and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly became a cult classic, and later a mainstream success. Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. It is now considered a canonical work of modern Southern literature, in the USA. The title derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." The story is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s. The central character is Ignatius J. Reilly, an educated but slothful 30-year-old man still living with his mother in the city's Uptown neighborhood, who, due to an incident early in the book, must set out to get a job. In his quest for employment he has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters.
Creole Trombone
by John Mc Cusker
"John Mc Cusker is a noted journalist,musician, and photographer from New Orleans. Edward ""Kid"" Ory (1886-1973) was a trombonist, composer, recording artist, and early New Orleans jazz band leader. Creole Trombone tells his story from birth on a rural sugar cane plantation in a French-speaking, ethnically mixed family, to his emergence in New Orleans as the city's hottest band leader. The Ory band featured such future jazz stars as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, and was widely considered New Orleans's top ""hot"" band. Ory's career took him from New Orleans to California, where he and his band created the first African American New Orleans jazz recordings ever made. In 1925 he moved to Chicago where he made records with Oliver, Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton and captured the spirit of the jazz age. His most famous composition from that period, ""Muskrat Ramble,"" is a jazz standard. Retired from music during the Depression, he returned in the 1940s and enjoyed a reignited career."
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
This classic drama follows Blanche DuBois and the issues that arise when she moves to New Orleans to live with her sister and her husband.
Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton
by Williams M. Gaines
Jelly's Blues recounts the tumultuous life of Jelly Roll Morton (ca., 18851941). A virtuoso pianist with a larger-than-life personality, he composed such influential early jazz pieces as "King Porter Stomp" and "New Orleans Blues." However, by the late 1930s, he was nearly forgotten. In 1992, the death of an eccentric memorabilia collector led to the unearthing of a startling archive, revealing Morton to be a much more complex and passionate man than many realized. An especially immediate and visceral look into the jazz worlds of New Orleans and Chicago, Jelly's Blues is a definitive biography, a long overdue look at one of the twentieth century's most important composers.
Creole New Orleans Race and Americanization
by Arthur Hirsch and John Logsdon
This collection of six original essays explores the peculiar ethnic composition and history of New Orleans, which the authors persuasively argue is unique among American cities. The focus of Creole New Orleans is on the development of a colonial Franco-African culture in the city, the ways that culture was influenced by the arrival of later immigrants, and the processes that led to the eventual dominance of the Anglo-American community.
Life On The Mississippi
by Mark Twain
An invaluable companion to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's inimitable portrait of 'the great Father of Waters'. Part memoir, part travelogue, it expresses the full range of Twain's literary personality, and remains the most vivid, boisterous and provocative account of the cultural and societal history of the Mississippi Valley, from 'the golden age' of steamboating to the violence wrought by the Civil War.
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6 days
5 nights
10 meals
4 B 1BR 2 L 3 D
DAY
1
Check-in, Registration, Orientation, Welcome Dinner
New Orleans, LA
D
Hotel Monteleone

Activity note: Hotel check-in from 3:00 p.m. Regostration and Orientation at 3:30 p.m. If your arrival is delayed, please ask for your packet when you check in. The French Quarter Festival events take place at locations spread throughout the area. Expect to walk extensively to access the stage locations. Road Scholar will provide a folding chair to carry with you to festival stages.

Afternoon: Program Registration: 3:30 p.m. The location is posted on the hotel message board. You’ll receive a welcome packet with your name-tag, up-to-date schedule that reflects any last-minute changes and other important information. Orientation: 4:00 p.m. The Group Leader will greet everyone and lead introductions. We will review the up-to-date program schedule, discuss roles and responsibilities, logistics, safety guidelines, emergency procedures and answer questions. In addition to the main event of this program, the French Quarter Festival, exclusive Road Scholar educational presentations and performances enhance your experience and learning in New Orleans. Your Group Leader will provide maps and “insider” information to assist you to navigate and choose from the extensive festival offerings and make the most of your time. For detailed festival information and to start planning in advance of your arrival in New Orleans, visit the festival website at https://frenchquarterfest.org There is also an app that can be downloaded to your smartphone to help you navigate the many offerings. Menu selections for included meals are made in advance. We’ve selected our favorite local eateries! Road Scholar participants are divided into groups, each with your own Group Leader, and each group will rotate through the selected restaurants. Periods in the daily schedule designated as “Free time” and “At leisure” offer opportunities to do what you like and make your experience even more meaningful and memorable according to your personal preferences. The Group Leader will be happy to offer suggestions. Program activities, schedules, personnel and indicated distances or times may change due to local circumstances. In the event of changes, we will alert you as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

Dinner: In the hotel private room, we’ll have a plated and served dinner with coffee, tea, water beverage choices included; other beverages available for purchase. We’ll enjoy a special musical performance as we dine.

Evening: Continue getting to know your fellow Road Scholars. Then settle in and get a good night’s rest for the day ahead.

DAY
2
Exclusive Performance, City Field Trip, Festival Begins
New Orleans, LA
B,L
Hotel Monteleone

Activity note: Getting on/off a motorcoach during the city field trip. Walking and standing according to your personal discretion to attend your choices of festival performances.

Breakfast: In the hotel, choose what you like from the extensive breakfast buffet.

Morning: We’ll be joined by New Orleans musicians who will give a presentation on New Orleans Music and perform just for us! Afterwards, we’ll head over to Bourbon St. to view the French Quarter Festival Kick-Off Parade. Next, we’ll meet our motorcoach to head to lunch and our field trip.

Lunch: Today we will enjoy delicious New Orleans cuisine at one of the city's top restaurants and order from a select menu.

Afternoon: We’ll reboard our motorcoach for an overview of the city with a local expert. We’ll make stops at highlights such as Lake Pontchartrain, Bayou St. John, City Park with its magnificent oak trees and Sculpture Garden and one of the famed and mysterious above-ground cemeteries where the departed — from pirates to voodoo queens — are interred. We return to the hotel mid-afternoon. The remainder of the day is at your leisure to enjoy the French Quarter Festival performances. The French Quarter Music Festival, the largest free music festival in the South, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization launched in 1984. More than 2,000 community volunteers now help to make it a success. The outstanding musicians present every genre from traditional and contemporary jazz to R&B, New Orleans funk, brass bands, folk, gospel, Latin, Zydeco, classical, cabaret, and international. There are more than 400 performances on 23 stages throughout the French Quarter over four days, the largest celebration in the world of Louisiana music.

Dinner: Your choice to dine as you like. The choices are many, as local restaurants set up special stands in Jackson Square, Riverfront Park and many other locations. The “food festival” aspect is celebrated just as much as the live music.

Evening: Free time to enjoy the festival. Additionally, an entrance voucher is included for Fritzel’s European Jazz Club, for you to use at your discretion (drink included).

DAY
3
Private Music Performance, French Quarter Music Festival
New Orleans, LA
B,D
Hotel Monteleone

Activity note: Walking and standing according to your personal discretion to attend your choices of festival performances.

Breakfast: Hotel buffet.

Morning: We’ll enjoy another Road Scholar exclusive presentation and performance by local musicians.

Lunch: This meal has been excluded from the program cost and is on your own to enjoy what you like. The Group Leader will be happy to offer suggestions.

Afternoon: Free Time to enjoy the festival. Additionally, Road Scholar includes vouchers to explore the Cabildo and Presbytère, which flank St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. Both were constructed during the Spanish period (1795-1799). The Cabildo was the center of government. The Presbytère, built on the site of what had been the residence of Capuchin monks, was used for commercial purposes. Both are now key components of the Louisiana State Museum. The Cabildo displays artifacts of American history as well as rarities such as Napoleon’s death mask. The Presbytère’s interactive exhibit on Mardi Gras traces our annual celebration from its origins to the present day with an exquisite collection of artifacts and memorabilia. Another exhibit expresses Louisiana’s saga of resilience in the face of disasters. You might also like to stroll along Royal Street with its antique shops, visit the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, or go for a ride on the paddlewheeler “Natchez” — last authentic steamboat on the Mississippi.

Dinner: We’ll walk to dinner in a nearby restaurant, with pre-selected menus.

Evening: At leisure to enjoy the festival performances.

DAY
4
Private Jazz Performance, French Quarter Festival, Free Time
New Orleans, LA
B,L
Hotel Monteleone

Activity note: Walking and standing according to your personal discretion to attend your choices of festival performances and free time activities.

Breakfast: Hotel buffet.

Morning: During an exclusive Road Scholar presentation in the hotel, one of New Orleans' top musicians explains – and demonstrates - the origins of New Orleans Jazz, accompanied by his famous band, leaving us snapping our fingers and tapping our toes.

Lunch: We’ll walk to a French Quarter restaurant and enjoy our pre-selected menu.

Afternoon: Free Time. Another glorious afternoon of the festival’s musical possibilities. You may wish to explore the special events, such as Cajun and Zydeco dance lessons. Or, choose to visit the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Hermann-Grima House, sip café au lait at the Café du Monde, or any of the multitude of choices to experience New Orleans history and culture. The choices are yours!

Dinner: Your choice to dine as you like. The Group Leader will be happy to help with suggestions.

Evening: At leisure.

DAY
5
Private Music Performance, French Quarter Festival
New Orleans, LA
B,D
Hotel Monteleone

Breakfast: Hotel buffet.

Morning: Another up close and personal Road Scholar exclusive presentation in the hotel, with New Orleans musicians. Some of our best play just for us in a private performance.

Lunch: Your choice to dine as you like

Afternoon: Free Time. Is your heart pumping, are your toes tapping, your fingers snapping? Enjoy the music and events at the many festival stages.

Dinner: We’ll walk to a nearby restaurant for our farewell dinner, from our previously selected menu.

Evening: At leisure. Enjoy a final evening of the French Quarter Festival! Prepare for check out and departure tomorrow.

DAY
6
Jazz Brunch, Program Concludes
New Orleans, LA
BR

Activity note: Walking 4 blocks each way, from hotel to brunch. Hotel check-out by 12:00 Noon.

Brunch: We’ll walk from the hotel to arrive at 9:00 a.m. for an experience you’ll remember. At the celebrated Court of Two Sisters, we’ll settle in for a true New Orleans delight, the Jazz brunch. The elaborate buffet offers tasty hot and cold New Orleans favorites from eggs any style to Creole jambalaya, grits and grillades, gumbo, classic desserts, and much more; coffee, tea, water included, other beverages available for purchase. Tap your toes to the music of the restaurant’s resident Jazz trio. Enjoy this final dining and musical experience with a broader and deeper understanding and appreciation of our city, the one and only New Orleans. This concludes our program. We hope you enjoy Road Scholar learning adventures and look forward to having you on rewarding programs in the future. Please join our Facebook page and share photos of your program. Visit us at www.facebook.com/rsadventures. Best wishes for all your journeys!






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