Music producing organizations in five Middlesex County towns, each with a distinct reputation for presenting live jazz, are working together to form the Middlesex County Jazz Festival, with free performances in each town scheduled for September 28 through October 1 2023.
The organizations include Edison’s Mayor & Council, Perth Amboy Artworks, New Brunswick Jazz Project, Woodbridge Arts and the Metuchen Arts Council & Friends of Metuchen Arts. The close ties between the leaders of these organizations inspired the idea of a Middlesex County centered jazz festival.
New Brunswick has developed into a jazz hub in New Jersey thanks to the efforts of Michael Tublin, Jimmy Lenihan and Virginia DeBerry, cofounders of New Brunswick Jazz Project which has produced jazz events in New Brunswick twice a week for the past 14 years. Their original idea was to “create a space for grownups in this college town”, as Virginia DeBerry likes to say. In the process, they have been instilling an appreciation of jazz in audiences of all ages.
Lynne Mueller, who heads the team producing Metuchen Jazz events for several years already, says “we certainly have the audience for it as the number of people attending events is rapidly growing.”
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