11th Annual Legacy Project: Music, Art, and Heritage

Join Community Music Center of Houston for the 2026 Legacy Project, a Black Music Month celebration honoring the musicians, music educators, and artists whose work has contributed mightily to Houston’s Black cultural landscape.

This year, we honor Dr. Anne Lundy, Dr. Ruth Stewart, Ina Zellers and Dr. Gloria Quinlan, four women whose lives and work remind us that music is not only performed. It is taught, carried, remembered, and passed on.

Each year, the Legacy Project brings together visual art, live music, public memory, and community celebration. This year, we begin Black Music Month on Sunday, June 7, with an art show opening, a concert featuring special musical guests, and the Legacy honoree awards.

The opening celebration will take place at the historic Eldorado Ballroom, including programming in Eldorado Ballroom’s Dupree Room. This year, the Legacy Project also welcomes the Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum in Freedmen’s Town as a partner organization, expanding Legacy activations throughout the month of June.

Through exhibitions, public programs, and a special honoree celebration and concert, we will lift up the people, the stories, and the music that continue to shape this city.

Whether you grew up with this music, studied with one of our honorees, heard the Scott Joplin Chamber Orchestra in your church, or are discovering this legacy for the first time, you are welcome in the room.

This event is pay what you can.

Schedule of Events:

Eldorado Ballroom
2310 Elgin Street, Houston, TX 77004

2:00–4:00 P.M.
Black Music Month Art Opening
Eldorado Ballroom’s Dupree Room

4:30–6:30 P.M.
Legacy Honoree Celebration and Concert
Eldorado Ballroom
Featuring special musical guests

Black Music Month Art Show Closing at Eldorado Ballroom's Dupree Room

Friday, June 26

2:00-4:00 P.M.

Additional Legacy Project programs will take place throughout June in partnership with Community Artists' Collective and Freedmen’s Town Museums Houston / Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum as part of Harmonies of Heritage: A Juneteenth 2026 Celebration of African American Music.

All listed activations below will be hosted at the J. Vance and Pauline Gray Lewis Home.

Thursday, June 18
4:00–7:00 P.M.

Thursday, June 25
4:00–7:00 P.M.

Saturday, June 27
10:00 A.M.–1:00 P.M.

Tuesday, June 30
10:00 A.M.–1:00 P.M.

Private tours are available for prior purchase: $25.
Proceeds support Freedmen’s Town Museums Houston / Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum’s 30 years of preservation.

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Host or Publisher Community Music Center of Houston