In 2019, The Saint Louis Music Initiative was announced as a way to help recognize St. Louis’ musical heritage and create an atmosphere where today’s musicians and music industry can amplify their success. Vehicles for that success include the Music at the Intersection Festival, which returns this September with a new, larger outdoor footprint.
“The [Music at the Intersection] festival is a call to action from the broader music community,” says Chris Hansen, executive director of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. “This is a real effort to celebrate St. Louis’ footprint on the American songbook. This is about our history and heritage. Also, celebrating all of our great talent and the future of our music scene here in St. Louis. It’s a civic effort to ensure that St. Louis has a festival for generations that’s in its likeness.”
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The festival highlighting blues, jazz, soul, R&B, hip-hop, and rock and roll artists is transferring the core of its entertainment outside with three stages, food trucks, and a “Mural Market” with products from local artisan vendors and experiential art activations. Music at the Intersection will also include a range of carnival-inspired activities for patrons, including dunk booths, pop-up circus performances, flying trapeze rides, and workshops.
The Midwest Music Summit will also land as part of the festival on September 9 at .ZACK. The one-day event, hosted by TuneSpeak and The Recording Academy, will feature five speaker panels of industry professionals sharing their knowledge with musicians and those in the music industry. “It’s going to be a great way to bring the industry to St. Louis, and to give our local artists some new connections and some new resources,” says Hansen.
The festival itself begins at 11 a.m. on September 10, and performances will take place in the outdoor footprint throughout the weekend. Hansen says the event will welcome 7,000-10,000 people per day to the outdoor venues. After dark, Grand Center’s partner institutions—The Fox Theatre, Sheldon Concert Hall, Jazz St. Louis, and The Grandel Theater— will open for after-parties at full capacity, so festival-goers can keep the fun rolling.
This year marks Music at the Intersection’s second year, and its first without heavy COVID restrictions. Hansen says that the first event’s smaller capacity limited budgets and what the festival was capable of presenting. But this year, people are going to experience a more enhanced, three-dimensional version of the festival. “Our industry—the arts industry, the music industry—was first to close, last to open. COVID has done great damage to many homes and businesses, and our industry was not unscathed—it was hurt immensely. Putting people back to work, getting artists on stages, and ensuring that the infrastructure is available to reintroduce the public to live art has been at the forefront of our efforts ever since the top of the pandemic,” Hansen says. “We think we’ve been best in class at doing that safely, but it’s vitally important to keep live art and audiences engaging in live art.”
Last year’s headliners included Lalah Hathaway, Gregory Porter, and Roy Ayers, and organizers are hoping for another year of great talent and memorable moments with the 2022 fest. “It was a real joy to see some of St. Louis’ finest shine on the world stage at the Fox Theatre last year,” says Hansen. “To see Keyon Harold and Scooter Brown and Denise Thimes share the stages with Lalah Hathaway and Gregory Porter, to see Anita Jackson bring down the house in one of the most majestic and important venues in the world—[it was] one of my favorite moments.”
The 2022 lineup expands the focus of the festival beyond the blues, jazz, and heritage genres to include soul, funk, hip hop, R&B, and indie rock acts. Highlights across the two-day festival’s more than 50 artists include Erykah Badu, Gary Clark Jr., Buddy Guy, and Hiatus Kaiyote. And the event’s “St. Louis Made” theme will also put the spotlight on talent with local ties, among them The Urge, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, Foxing, and the St. Lunatics.
“We’re punching up really high on the talent side,” Hansen says. “Our local St. Louis talent is celebrated and elevated throughout this whole [festival]. St. Louis is known for a lot of things when it comes to music, and you’re going to find a little bit of all of that at this festival. We’ve got some great A-List acts that are coming through.”
Tickets can be purchased starting on March 11 at 10 a.m., with pre-sale tickets available through select venue partner e-blasts starting March 8. For the full lineup and ticket information, visit musicattheintersection.org.
